Scandal on Ben Nevis Our gallivanting journals

This xmas we considered going for a trip to some of European cool cities, but then we decided not to, and stayed in the ‘burg. The idea was originally to have fun in the snow, with snowshoes and cross-country skis and all that but then the weather was actually really bad – it was very warm so there was no snow even on the hills, and it was often very rainy. This is btw the second year in a row with shitty xmas ambiance in the ‘burg, so I still didn’t get the skis I wanted to buy last year already. To be fair though, in the UK they had massive storms and flash floods, so that might have been even worse.

Anyway, we decided to be couch potatoes instead, and for that purpose got ourselves nice big 42” tv – the first time i’ve had a tv since like ten years or so. Of course we don’t actually get the stupid german broadcast, but got the tv specifically just to watch movies. And movies we watched – to name just a few, I loved The Great Gatsby, Behind the Candelabra, Another Earth (all newly gotten for b-day/xmas), and re-watched many of my fav classics – The Royal Tenenbaums, Shame, We’re the Millers, The Thick of It, Inbetweeners, Sherlock, Gone Baby Gone… And I still have Anna Karenina to watch when Iestyn’s gone (not really his type of movie).

Our xmas

Speaking of Sherlock, we could not wait for the new season (not really a “season” they only got like three episodes, and that’s after like two years! I wonder what they’ve been doing.) Unfortunately we could not watch it on the new big tv because we’re outside of the UK and we didn’t manage to work out FilmOn on it (not so “smart” now, is it?), but we still loved the first episode so far, and I cannot wait until the season is on a dvd.

Towards the end of our little holidays we found the full first season of Boardwalk Empire on dvds for only like 10eur in a shop in the ‘burg, so we got it to try it out, and we got completely hooked – watched the whole season in just a couple of days. Now I cannot wait for the shops to open to get the second season as well (I hope they have it!).

We had plenty of xmas cookies to eat with all that trashy entertainment, plus some delicious Leonidas pralines. I got an amazing kettle from Iestyn for my b-day, the kind that measures and shows the temperature of the water, and can be set to heat the water to any temperature – that’s important to make the perfect green tea and other tea kinds, which I like to make. So our holidays were also accompanied by excellent teas, from Kusmi in Paris and from the Palais des Thes.

Out tree was small as always but lovely, and there were so many presents underneath this year! We bought our supplies for xmas lunch on the Munster market as usual, that’s our fav thing to do, and Iestyn selected a lovely mushroom and chestnut pie for this year’s menu, accompanied as usual with roasted vegetables with Porto wine sauce, and mashed sweet potatoes with baked garlic. It was super-delicious, and i think we should make the mushroom pie our festive time staple.

Dinner in the making

Dinner almost ready

Delicious

I got awesome pressies, honorable mention goes to a proper ginger beard! I also got many books and a t-shirt and lush bath bombs and dvds and a beautifully designed lunchbox, so that I can prepare my lunch for work more often, which I should really do.
We also managed to give each other the same present – a lovely graphic novel called The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil. One of them will have to go back to the store; so Iestyn will be keeping his, while I can pick another present to exchange for. I selected a great book about Wes Anderson’s films, but it’s currently all sold out, so we need to wait for the re-print (April may be?).

Gigantic Beard x2

Pressies!

Gigantic Beard x2
(note my Ho Ho Ho shirt!)

So all in all it was an epic break; we didn’t do much, but had a great time and re-charged our energy for the nex year!

2014!