‘Medieval’ Christmas market in Esslingen-am-Neckar, our local market town with the old town hall in the background. This seems an appropriate image to use to wish my readers a happy Christmas, and to thank you for reading and commenting on the blog. We will be away for a week over new year so posts may be sporadic if I don’t get myself into gear and prepare some updates, but weather permitting I’ll be back with more mutterings in January.

And on the subject of weather, can whoever keeps asking for a white Christmas stop it? The forecast says that 20-50cm of snow will be dumped on us int he next 24 hours, and frankly we’ve enough of the stuff already.