Glub Wine

It seems as though many ciites are coming to realize the magical charm of a Christmas market. Quite a few people we talked to this past week had visited Christmas markets: Andy & Ali in Birmingham, Nick, who'd had his own stall at the market on Queens Stree in Leciester, Dom in Toronto.. and us. We were priviledged to be able to visit the oldest market in Germany held in the town square in Frankfurt.

We arrived late afternnon, when the sun was going down and the Christmas lights were beginning to sparkle.

There were many stalls selling Christmas decorations, and local crafts such as wood turning and lace. There were also many stalls selling street food -- candy floss; frankfurters; roasted chestnuts; fried pastries; all manner of German Christmas cookies and gingerbread, that imparted a wonderful aniseed and molasses scent in the air. But by far the bast stalls were those with steaming vats of Gluhwein.

It was cold, really cold, and we did try hard to distract ourselves by watching the children on the most amazing merry-go round I have ever seen, and by buying some of the Christmas goodies -- gingerbread for Andy and Almut and some beeswax candles, complete with beeswax bees.

We also bought some glass ornaments -- round globes that held tea-lights. Unfortunately, my packing skills are less than stellar and we have arrived home with only two out of three intact.

Despite our best attempts to keep warm by other means, we confess that we were forced to visit the Gluhwein stalls three times during the course of the eveining. Gluhwein is marvellous, it not only warms the hands, and body, but also warms through to the verycoldest parts of the soul. It is pure magic. We may have had jsut a little more than we needed, as H didn't seem to be able to read the signs after the first one. He insisted on calling it Glub-wine, claiming that it was spelled that way. Glub, glub, glub...