Déjà Vu

Just a few short months since the snow last melted.

Time to welcome it back.

Christmas Market: Munich

Last weekend, Haworth; this weekend, Munich.

This traditional Christmas market is on a very different scale to the one at home.  It’s actually several different markets, scattered about the streets and squares of the city centre.  Closed to traffic, there’s a surprisingly calm yet super-festive atmosphere.

The street food smells – and tastes – spectacularly good.  Glühwein and punch are served in china mugs shaped like boots; fruit and nuts and candies come in paper cones.  I’m eating hot chestnuts and fresh dates and Kaiserschmarrn and pumpkin seeds flavoured with vanilla and cinnamon.  The sausages for sale could stretch to the moon.

The ground is covered with the lightest dusting of snow and the cobbles are slippery with ice.  On the stroke of each hour – and several times in between – chimes ring out from the tower of Alter Peter; and the figures high on the facade of the Rathaus turn clockwork circles.

In the Marienplatz, the tallest Christmas tree I’ve ever seen (almost 100 feet high) is sparkling with thousands of tiny lights.  As dusk falls, a choir on the town hall balcony begins to sing carols into the frostbitten night.  I watch my breath freeze, as the music swirls up and around the beautiful old architecture, up to the star-crazed sky.

I can totally understand why Munich is regularly rated one of the best places in the world to live.  Right at this moment, I want to live here, too.

P.S.  Today I’m taking part in Mosaic Monday, hosted by Mary at Little Red House.  Why not pop on over and take a look at some of the other lovely mosaics you’ll find links to there?

Thanksgiving

So across the big, wide ocean, y’all are celebrating Thanksgiving today.

Turkey and football and fevered Black Friday planning apart….it’s always seemed a wonderful thing to me that a country should set aside an entire day to be thankful.

I’ve been experimenting with gratitude recently.  Not the run-of-the-mill gratitude we all feel for the gestures and things which make us happy.  But gratitude for stuff I don’t necessarily feel grateful for.  Even stuff I downright resent.

And I’ve been discovering, during this experiment of mine, just how astonishingly powerful gratitude is.  How it can actually transform the way we feel; change our entire experience of a situation or relationship.

It began when I found myself idly wondering, one day, whether gratitude might operate like love.  After all, love worth its salt - solid, empowering love - is a choice: we choose to love the people closest to us - on the days when they’re driving us nuts as well as on the days when they melt our hearts.  What if gratitude operated that way, too?

I can report - conclusively - that it does.  This isn’t about denial or brainwashing.  It’s about choice.  There are always a gazillion ways to look at something.  The way we choose to look is our choice.  The way we choose to look is our truth.

Choosing to look with gratitude is proving to be an extraordinary and liberating experience.  So I’m definitely across the other side of the Atlantic in spirit today.  No turkey required.

The Same View: November

Today was the scheduled day to take this month’s photo from ‘our rock’ and - whad’ya know? - the sun shone (a bit).

It was hardly typical of the month to date, which has been grey or foggy by turns.  But I was sneakily glad - ’cause I prefer to show you the sunny side of life.  :)

Here then is the eleventh and penultimate picture in our series: November.

Christmas Market: Haworth

Our local Christmas market is a modest affair: stalls ranged along a stretch of Main Street; a craft fair in the Old School Rooms; shopkeepers in period costume; a local choir singing carols; mulled wine and buskers.

Despite its small scale, it’s a great place to pick up presents; and enough people turned out to create a jolly atmosphere.

Even the rain held off till the end of the day.  In the spirit of the season.

P.S.  Today I’m taking part in Mosaic Monday, hosted by Mary at Little Red House.  Why not pop on over and take a look at some of the other lovely mosaics you’ll find links to there?