23December1996

Monday 23 December
My dear folks,

Jones & I have just tramped back home through the snow from Hambach at the end of a lovely day. I had Jones’s little black knapsack on my back, my weighty computer bag slung across my shoulder & Rolf’s ice-studs strapped to my shoes. Yet I trod lightly. So did Jones, clad in the bright pink body warmer she has just inherited from Cathy, her short fur coat & her outer full length coat, inherited from Cathy a year ago - as well as numerous under-garments. The pair of us seem to do a lot of inheriting one way & another but it seems to please the givers almost as much as the receivers or, at least, that’s the impression we think we get. The inheritance is certainly appreciated & well used.

It’s not often that Jones declares she is warm but she did so last night & she was again tonight - a rare victory of artifice over nature. She didn’t quite manage it this a.m. which is where I think this letter should pick up the threads. It began in the early hours for me when, during a brief waking spell, I heard an American radio station predict freezing rain for Germany. When I woke again, just before nine, it was apparent that the forecaster had got it right. The garden was frozen on one side of the house & several cars were frozen on the other. The rain had clad them in a solid layer of ice & left long icicles hanging morbidly around the edges. “Gleis”, our landlady informed us at breakfast, indicating that the family car had skidded all over the road when her husband took her out at the crack of dawn to fetch fresh bread. The bread, I should add, was scrumptious.

With memories still fresh in my mind of my treacherous descent down Cathy’s black ice-clad hill a year ago, I warned Jones that we could be in for quite an adventure. Breakfast was hardly over when Cathy phoned to say that the road was covered in the thickest blanket of black ice they’d ever seen & they couldn’t move. Did we chose to remain in the guesthouse? We did not! Screwing our courage to the sticking place, we set out gingerly on the trek from Diedesfeld to Hambach. The road & pavement were icy but walkable with care. All along the roadside, motorists were hacking ice from the windows & doors of their cars. Those motorists who were underway crept along, ducking aside for the gritting trucks which grunted up & down the narrow road through the town.

We turned off the main street to follow a middle route - between the main road (which we knew well) & the vineyard tracks (which we’d taken the previous day when we deviated up the hill to Hambacher Schloss). It was the 4th route we’d taken in 4 days & easily the nicest. While I know the expression “freezing rain” well enough, it’s the first time I’ve really come across the phenomenon. While it makes a wretched mess of cars, it transforms nature in quite breathtaking fashion. Every blade of glass, every twig, every branch, every blossom & every bud is encased in its private glass case. Lawns had become a kind of coral. Trees were framed in glass jackets. I have never seen anything like it. Branches tilted over dangerous under the weight of their glazing. It was glorious & after a while we forgot about the going underfoot & lost ourselves in the wonderland we were traversing. The rain turned to sleet as we walked & was gradually turning to snow.

By midday, the road down from Hambach was navigable again & we set out with Rolf to fetch a Christmas tree & a turkey, as well as the floppy disk with yesterday’s letter on it, which I’d forgotten at the guesthouse. The Christmas trees were frozen over, both those left outside & a selection that was under roof. But we found a suitable one & brought it home in the capacious boot of Rolf’s new car. We left it to thaw in the hall.

Let me interrupt today’s flow to tell you that last night, Rolf took us along to the Christmas fair in the small town of Landau, some 15 minutes away. We arrived & parked & walked up the freezing pedestrian mall to find no sign of the festivities. The fair had clearly packed up & gone elsewhere. We did a little window shopping instead but found the wind too sharp for us & took refuge in a coffee shop instead where we sought consolation in the good things it offered.

Monday, after lunch (bread, cheeses, meats & sparkling wine), I retired to the Winter Garden (Cathy’s glassed in patio) with the three girls to get them to relate a few thoughts to grannies, aunts & other relations. The bits of formal dictation were somewhat pedestrian, but the exchanges these provoked were delightful & I set out to capture as much of both as I could. The results will follow shortly.

Then we all trooped upstairs to look at the final episode of Faulty Towers. Anita had already seen it & proclaimed it the best of the bunch. And so it was. Then we watched “The Secret Garden”, a 1975 BBC version which we compared with another production that we’d all seen in London & loved. I’m not sure whether the BBC video lacked the magic of the film or whether the children had merely grown older, but they were able to distance themselves from the action & to make wry comments about what was going on. Even so, it was fun. Anita had spread herself out in an eiderdown. I was sitting on a chair with Jones, seated on a big rubber ball, between my knees. Cathy was beside me, Erica & Micaela beside her & Rolf, once he’d come up from his nap, on the bed behind us. Micaela’s sort throat seems much improved & she was in good spirits, occasionally hauling out her camera to record some special moment. Outside, the windows darkened & spickles of snow fell steadily on the patio. The arrival of the snow delighted Cathy who told us that White Christmases were a rare event in this part of Germany & all the more highly prized for it.

We supped on fruit starters & Christmas cake finishers......delish! before bringing down the Christmas tree & setting it up in the lounge where Jones & I left the decorators to it while we clad ourselves for the tramp home. Rolf lent me his Norwegian studs....designed to allow one to walk securely across the most treacherous ice surfaces....but I hardly needed them. There was an inch of snow across the road & we strode home along its squeaky surface, warm, thrilled to be here & unburdened of the world’s cares. What more can one ask?

Blessings
T