New Year's Week

For most of us, the end of an old and start of a new year is a special time, often marked by festivities, and equally often leaving us somewhat suspended in mid-air, out of our regular weekly activities, not knowing what day of the week it actually is unless we have appointments to keep. 

O.K. and I spent the week together until Saturday lunch time, when I boarded the first of three trains to take me back to Ludwigsburg.

Monday (29.12.2025) was sunny but cold at -6C/21F. Wrapped up warmly, we braved the cold for a walk but didn't stay out for much more than an hour.

By 3:00 pm, we were at my Mum's. She was hosting a gathering of family and friends; there were 9 of us in total plus three dogs - a rather lively afternoon and evening, as you can imagine.

There was coffee and cake, followed by enough time for part of the group to walk the dogs and visit the cemetery while the others (me included) stayed behind, clearing the long table of coffee cups and plates and setting it for the evening.

My Mum had made two large lasagnes, one with and the other without meat. For starters, we had antipasti made by my sister. Everything we ate and drank was delicious, and conversation was flowing freely. Of course O.K. and I told them our news and happily received congratulatory hugs.

It began to snow late afternoon/early evening.

Tuesday (30.12.2025) was equally cold and sunny. 

The view from my bedroom that morning...

...and from the kitchen.

A few days previously, a good friend and former colleague had texted me about the recent death of a former colleague of ours, and we arranged to attend her funeral together. I had liked this colleague very much but had not remained in touch after I'd left the company in 2003. The funeral was moving, and from the priest's eulogy I learned some surprising things about the colleague. The music was beautiful. Standing in line on the cemetery, waiting our turn to throw a handful of flowers into the open grave, we were very cold, no matter how warmly we were dressed.

We were glad to be back at my place for a coffee before my friend left. I quickly packed my things, and then O.K. drove us the 150 km to his place for the rest of the week.

New Year's Eve (31.12.2025) was another bright sunny day. We took things easy and slept in. In the afternoon, we went for a walk. It was good to be out and not too cold as long as we kept to sunny paths; we walked for about two hours before eventually the cold caught up with us and I wanted nothing but to get back to the warm cottage.

The two of us spent the evening talking, watching some silly TV and eating a fine meal. For my birthday in March, a friend had given me a small bottle of real champagne; we raised our glasses at midnight with that and watched what fireworks we could see from the cottage. O.K.'s idea had been to climb one of the hills around the village and watch the fireworks from there, but I chickened out - it really was very cold. 

On New Year's Day (01.01.2026) we took it easy again, only going for a walk in combination with two errands and back after an hour or so. 

Every year on the 1st of January, O.K.'s Mum hosts a traditional family meal, and this year was no exception. For us it only meant to cross the road, and we enjoyed the food and company as always.

It snowed some more on Friday (02.01.2026), and if I remember correctly, once again we were out only briefly, if at all. How good to have a warm house to retreat to, with a well stocked fridge and comfy settee in it, and to top it all off, with the man you love!

View from O.K.'s cottage towards the main village road that morning.

On Saturday (03.01.2026), we had arranged to meet friends for breakfast at a café. We had last seen them in October, and it was nice to catch up.

I then had a bit of an adventurous trip home; the first of my three trains was delayed so that I would not catch my connection in Karlsruhe, which caused us to dash to the station half an hour earlier than planned so that I managed to catch an earlier train and reached my connection in Karlsruhe. 

That first train was VERY crowded, and for the 50 minute journey I only had standing room squeezed between the stairs to the upper level and - thankfully! - a window. Someone not far from me reeked of sweat, and there was much coughing and sneezing - urgh!

The second train from Karlsruhe to Stuttgart was such a relief; it was maybe half full, I had plenty of room, and nobody smelly was close by. In Stuttgart, things were (as usual) a bit chaotic, but eventually I made it home with a total delay of only 15 minutes. Still, I was too exhausted to do more than unpack, start the washing machine and do a very quick shopping of essential groceries.

From the train, I had been watching it snowing on a monochrome landscape, and it was still snowing lightly by the time I got home.

On my way back from ALDI that afternoon.

This is not the midday sun - it was the night sky as seen from my kitchen window at 9:18 pm. The moon was intensely bright!

Sunday (04.01.2026) was cloudy and windy, but a little warmer than the previous days, with the thermometer reaching a max of maybe 2C/35F. I spent most of the morning pottering about the flat, then went for a walk with my sister before going to my Mum's for a coffee on the way home.

Sunrise on Sunday

Big sky over the fields the same afternoon.

The rest of Sunday evening I was just relaxing, trying to imagine that work was really starting again the next morning, and of course O.K. and I talked on the phone.

Read in 2026 - 1: A Simple Life

As is often the case for me around the turn of a year, I am not sure whether to count a book as read in the past or the current year. This one, for instance, I finished reading on the 2nd of January, but had started much earlier in December. It's a paperback I found at the 2nd hand book sale that takes place by the church once a month on a Saturday, and there is usually a good selection of paperbacks in English for just 2 euros each.

A Simple Life

Rosie Thomas

It was my first read by this author, but it is likely that I'll buy more of her books should I happen to come across more paperbacks at the church sale. Although at first I struggled getting into the story - I simply didn't find the main character very interesting, or cared about her - that changed after a while, and I am glad I persisted.

The family of a British scientist transfer to the US for the scientist's work. The wife does her best to make a new home in the foreign country for their two boys, but keeps longing for what she left behind in England - and not just their house, friends and family, but also a big secret:

15 years ago, the couple had their first child, a daughter with Down syndrome. Just like now, their lives revolved around the husband; his work and what he needed in order to rise in brilliance and become a highly regarded scientist was their focus. A child that wasn't "normal" and that would always require a lot of attention and care didn't fit in with their plans, and so the baby was given up for adoption.

They knew that the girl was happy and well cared for and carried on with their lives - HIS life, mainly -, never talking about their first child.

Their plan worked out, but the longing for her daughter never left the woman. She loved her husband and the two boys they had afterwards, but there was still this gap, this big secret they were too ashamed of to talk about to anyone, not even with each other.

Eventually, the wife can't put on the facade of a perfect life any longer. She leaves for England on a quest to find her daughter, to see her, to get to know her.

I am not going to tell you how things go from there, in case you wish to read it for yourself. Not being a parent myself, sometimes I found it hard to relate to the mother's actions that were irresponsible and irrational, nor entirely to the father who wanted to let the past be the past and continue his life the way it was.

Let's just say that it isn't a smooth ride for anyone, and after this trip nothing will stay exactly the way it was before for the family and the others involved.

Something I liked about the book was the choice of settings for its scenes. The author plays the landscape and weather very well to fit in with what's going on. And while nowadays much of what happens would be different due to the almost constant availability of people via their smartphones, the book was written in the 1990s when yes, you could book a flight and travel between the US and UK at the drop of a hat (if you had the money), but you could easily be completely off the radar if you wished to. I also liked the actual writing, the language and choice of words.

Rosie Thomas has her own website here, where you can find out more about herself and her books.

Read in 2025 - 33, 34, 35

All three of the books I am about to review were free ebooks at Amazon's Kindle shop, and all three of them Christmas reads. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I enjoy seasonal reading, and around Christmas, I don't shy away from some truly kitschy stuff. I finished reading these stories a while ago but only now got round to typing up short reviews for them.

# 33: Little Girl Lost

Donna Douglas

The author has written a series of books set in the East End of London in the 1930s at the Nightingale Hospital. This one is a short Christmas story.

While on duty at Christmas, a nurse is doing her best to make this a special time for the children who are in her care. When a newborn baby is found and brought to the hospital, the young nurse is confronted not only with the immediate care of the little patient, but also with her own past. Will she be able to let the spirit of Christmas enter her heart?

I'd not come across Donna Douglas before and am not in a hurry to seeking out her other hospital books, but this one was nicely written and made for a short, cosy Christmas read, just what I wanted at the time.

I might check out her books set in Yorkshire - she is originally from London but now lives in York, something i have just learned from her website, which you can find here.

# 34, 35: Comfort Crossing Holiday Collection

Kay Correll

Two stories make up this collection. Both are set in Comfort Crossing, a small U.S. town where a close-knit community of families, friends and neighbours lead what goes for typical small-town lives. In both stories, characters from the other story appear, but they aren't installments as such, and it is not necessary to know the other books in the series to understand them.

In "The Christmas Cottage", a young veterinarian seeks to forget all about Christmas by working through the holidays as a stand-in for the regular vet at Comfort Crossing. 

To her dismay, when she arrives at the cottage that is to be her temporary home while working in the town, she finds everything there ready for Christmas, and her next-door neighbours who own the cottage are as eager to celebrate the holiday as she is to avoid it.

I'm not going to tell you more since maybe you enjoy a kitschy-cosy Christmas read like I do and want to download this one for next Christmas. It was very foreseeable and of course most of the characters are too good to be true, but that's ok - nobody claims that it's a documentary :-)

"The Christmas Scarf" introduces us to another young woman, but this one is actually from Comfort Crossing and home for the holidays - or so she wants everybody to believe while she's sorting out her life after her ambition of making it as a Country singer has failed.

With help from her family and friends as well as from a mysterious stranger, the young woman finds that all she really wants is not so far away from home.

Another author I was not familiar with. Her website is here.

Christmas Week

As almost always (with the exception of 2022, when the grief for my Dad and my sister's closest friend was still raw), Christmas was wonderful for me, and this year even more than usual - read on, and you'll see why :-)

On Monday (22 December), my trains back home were on time, and I only had a few hours of work left to do before I did a spot of shopping and then spent the afternoon resting, reading and playing my favourite computer game. It was cold and grey and I had no inclination to go for a walk.

Tuesday (23 December) was the true and proper start of the Christmas/New Year holidays for me; I was officially off work and did not switch on my work computer at all, having stowed it away until Jan. 5th.

It was cold, very windy and grey again, but I still went to walk for two hours, looking at the Christmas decorations people had put up.

Next, I wrapped the Christmas presents and then spent a quiet evening in front of the TV, later talking to O.K. on the phone and then some reading before lights out.

A white Christmas was not on the cards, but on Wednesday (24 December), a handful of tiny snow flakes fell; it was still cold, grey and very windy.

My sister and I went to our Mum's late morning to decorate her small tree - for the first time in our lives without any real candles! In spite of its funny shape and no real candles, it turned out prettily and festively.

See the tiny nativity under the tree? It's the one my sister made as a child, and that was part of the exhibition in our local museum in November.

We had lunch together and then we each spent the afternoon separately at home before meeting at Mum's again at 6:00 pm.

Christmas Eve for us is the most important part of Christmas, where we sing carols, exchange gifts and have a traditional meal. In our family, that meals has been the same for generations: Wiener sausages and potato salad, and it is something I look forward to each year.

My sister wrapped her gifts most prettily, even adding a fortune cookie!

We sang together, and I read the Christmas story I have written and that I had first read to my colleagues last week during our mini Christmas celebration.

Great gifts were waiting for me under the tree; among many other things, a hand-knitted top from my Mum with matching bracelet, a handbag I had seen in a shop in town and liked very much, and a ticket to Lenny Kravitz (yay!) in Stuttgart next summer from my sister.

On Christmas morning (Thursday, 25 December) I rang Mary, my 91-year-old mother-in-law in Yorkshire. Usually we talk for about an hour, but this time I just about managed to wish her Merry Christmas when after 11 minutes she said "I have to go - my nurse has just arrived", and off she was! Still, we had a quick chat and I know she is reasonably well, all things considered.

I then packed my little red suitcase and was off to the train station, with all three trains on time. When O.K. picked me up in Offenburg at 2:30 pm, it was sunny (still cold and a bit windy), so that the first thing we did after arriving at the cottage was go for a walk.

We had coffee and then exchanged our gifts... and the most wonderful gifts of all was... wait for it...

...O.K. proposed, and of course I said YES!!!

It was a moment of intense joy and much excitement, and I still have to pinch myself every now and then to make sure it's real and I wasn't just dreaming!

In February it will be ten years that we're together. For now, living arrangements will stay as they are, and we have not yet decided on a date or how and where exactly we want to get married, we just know that it'll happen some time next year, and all details will be agreed on and made known in due time.

Boxing Day (Friday, 26 December) in Germany is simply called 2. Weihnachtstag, similar to what Monica tells us from Sweden. Traditionally, a family mass is held at the village church with the village band providing the music. It is one of the few occasions during the year when I go to church, to hear them play and be there. I have taken photos of the two nativity scenes in the church and the beautiful tree:

After mass, O.K. changed out of his uniform into regular clothes, and together with his Mum we drove to the nearby village where his sister and her husband live. They had prepared a festive and very delicious lunch for the five of us, and when we started with a glass of sparkling wine, O.K. and I told them our news.

O.K. drove the two of us back to Ludwigsburg on Saturday (27 December) in the evening. During the day, we had been for a walk to take advantage of the sunny but cold weather.

On Sunday (28 December), the sun was shining again, and the wind had as good as died down. O.K. and I went for a walk after breakfast, followed by a rest and from around 2:00 pm onwards, I was mostly in the kitchen stirring sauce pans, peeling and chopping vegetables, laying the table and last but not least making batter for Yorkshire puddings.

In between I sat for a while in the living room while the food was taking care of itself, and shortly before my Mum and sister arrived at 6:00 pm, I poured the Yorkshire pudding batter into the tray of muffin forms I always use for that purpose.

The four of us had glasses of sparkling wine in our hands when O.K. and I announced our engagement, and of course much (but by no means all) of the evening's conversation revolved around the topic.

We ate the meal I had prepared and it turned out well enough even though for some reason the Yorkshire puddings didn't rise properly. It wasn't the first time I made them, and usually they look as they should do, but I suppose I shouldn't have opened the oven door half way through... Anyway, there not being any left over is an indication that they weren't too bad.

Ice cream for dessert was taken in the living room, and the four of us finished the bottle of Merlot we had started on during the meal (I used the same wine for the gravy, both the one with meat and the vegetarian one for my sister).

For the last time this season I lit the four candles on the Advent wreath, and we had a cosy and chatty evening until my sister accompanied our Mum home. I finished loading the dish washer and let it then do its job; not all that long afterwards we were tired enough to go to bed.

That was Christmas 2025!

Mid-December Week

Would you like an update on my Mum's handbag story? See the end of this post if you don't know what I'm talking about. 

As I said in that post, I'd posted on our neighbourhood platform and wrote to the police. While I had much positive feedback on the platform, there was no answer from the police. My Mum wrote a letter to our local paper, and instead of publishing her letter, they turned it into a proper article, ending with the offer to help the finder get in touch with my Mum.

And guess what - the young woman read the article and sent my Mum an email! She didn't expect any reward; she says it was the natural thing for her to do and she is just happy that my Mum got her bag back with everything still in it. My Mum sent her a beautiful card and a book for the little girl. 

Finally, the police replied; because they had arranged for the finder to bring the bag to the station, they had not taken her contact details on the phone and couldn't help me. I wrote back, telling them that everything was sorted now.

O.K. took this picture on Monday (15.12.) afternoon, with the village hidden under dense fog.

Last week Monday (15 December) was still sunny and relatively mild for the time of year. I worked from home and afterwards met my book-swapping friend (the one who shares her Thursday Murder Club books with me, among others) at the Christmas market.

We enjoyed a hot drink and good chat, but she was coughing and felt rather exhausted, having come straight from the office, and so we didn't stay long.

She emailed me the next afternoon telling me she had tested positive for COVID that morning and hoped she had not infected me. Of course I self-tested (although I felt - and still am - really fine) but was negative.

It got colder on Tuesday (16 December), but was still mostly sunny. Again I worked from home, and again I met up with friends afterwards, this time in Stuttgart, but not to visit the Christmas market there (which I am not keen on). Instead, my sister and a mutual friend we had not seen in a long time met for a meal at a restaurant, and had a good time catching up and eating good food.

Wednesday (17 December) was not only my last day at the office for this year, but also my last day this year working for my main employer. 

Our regular weekly department meeting was extended to include our sister department (we're Legal, they are Compliance), and apart from the first twenty minutes or so where important topics relating to our work were discussed, we turned it into a mini Christmas celebration.

There were cookies and tangerines on the table (I had made a dozen of dark chocolate chip scones, others brought traditional Christmas cookies and sweets), and our Head of Compliance had a festively decorated bag of home-made cookies for each of us. I read to them an admittedly very sentimental Christmas story I had written, and we ended the meeting wishing each other a Merry Christmas, a relaxing break and a good start into the new year.

I made sure to leave no unanswered emails or pressing tasks unfinished, and left at around half five. It always feels strange to me, saying to my colleagues "see you next year" and knowing I won't be back until January.

Unexpectedly, my boss had found that I was still due one day off this year, when I had been certain that I had taken them all - but I didn't complain, and so it happened that Thursday (18 December) was a day off for this employer (but I still did a few things for my secondary employer).

It meant I was able to have a massage in the morning (another "last time for this year" thing, with me and the very nice Chinese lady who is my favourite masseur exchanging Christmas gifts) and coffee with my Mum in the afternoon.

Sunset over the fields just after leaving my Mum's.

From there, I walked to my sister's, and together we went to the Christmas market one last time. We also had some fun looking at what went for festive clothes in one of our town's well stocked fashion stores, without buying anything.

A miniature Christmas train for small children has been installed on a square in town centre, for the first time this year.

Me waiting to get our hot drinks.

Friday (19 December) saw me doing my usual work in the morning and equally usual cleaning round in the afternoon before taking the evening train from Stuttgart to Offenburg. All went well with my trip, although Stuttgart Main Station was as chaotic as always on a Friday evening, with many last-minute changes of platforms, announcements of delays and cancellations and of course a constant stream of people dragging their luggage around in search of the information they needed to get to where they wanted to be.

O.K. and I had to get up early-ish on Saturday (20 December) in order to be at the village hall by 9:00 am. With other members of the village band and some other helping hands, we set up over 300 chairs and decorated the hall festively for the annual concert to be held that evening.

It took us about three hours; then O.K. and I went home, had a snack and then a good rest - I think I slept for almost an hour in the early afternoon.

By 5:45 pm, we were back at the hall, now dressed for the concert. The musicians went through the evening's music one last time, while I listened and scribbled some additional notes on the cards I had prepared for my MCing.

Getting ready

The after-show bar set up in one corner of the hall was decorated with "Walk of Fame"-type stars for every director the village band had during the past decades.

A little before 7:00, the doors were opened and the first people came in. The hall filled up quickly, and I chatted to a few visitors, among them O.K.'s sister and her husband.

My work place for the evening :-)

At 8:00 pm, the lights were dimmed and the musicians came on stage. That moment when there comes a hush over the audience, and when I then take the microphone and welcome everybody (after the head of the band has spoken, of course), is very special - a precise point in time marking the beginning of something many people have been working on for months.

This year, the concert marked the end of an era for the band: Their director of 30 years is leaving, and the new one was introduced. The music spanned those 30 years; from Jacques Offenbach's ouverture to "Orpheus" which they had played at their very first concert together in 1996 to a piece called "Nostalgia", played for the first time at this, their very last, concert; they played a Mary Poppins medley (my favourite!) as well as a Bon Jovi (I could easily live without that) and a Simon & Garfunkel one (nice) plus some more traditional pieces for brass band, and a Christmas carol with the crowd singing along at the end.

Memories were shared, and the moment when the "old" director said his good-bye was very emotional, for him as well as for the musicians. 

In short, it was a real success, and there were standing ovations at the end.

With all those additional speeches and honourings, the concert lasted until 22:45 pm, and it was 11:00 pm by the time O.K. was able to join me in the hall where we could finally clink glasses and have a much needed snack.

As usual, about half of the guests and musicians didn't stay on, while the other half took the chance to chat and have another drink. O.K. and I left the hall at around 1:30 am, and it was lights off for us at the cottage by 2:00 am.

The next morning (Sunday, 21 December) at 10:00 we were back at the hall. With many there to help, it took us just a bit over an hour to take down the decorations, put things back to normal, clean the hall's kitchen and sweep the floor.

I was given this beautiful bouquet at the end of the concert, but we only took a photo the next day.

It was cold and grey with a dense fog, and we were glad to have an easy hot lunch because O.K.'s Mum had given us home-made butternut squash soup. An afternoon nap followed, and in the early evening we went to deliver a birthday card to someone in the village, combining it with a little walk which gave us the chance to look at people's Christmas lights and decorations.

Our evening meal was delicious fresh pasta with pesto and rucola salad, and later we watched a cheesy romantic film, the kind where you know from the first scene exactly who's going to end up together - we love this kind of easy entertainment and escapism every now and then.

Thus the Fourth Advent Sunday ended. Happy, but tired!

Because I had not been home for the weekend, I lit the four candles on my Advent wreath on Monday evening.