getting into the spirit

For some reason this year, Christmas is not making an audible peep, at least for this household. I'm not sure why this is so, as the city centre is twinkling with lights; the town is boasting about its first ever outdoor ice rink; cards are written and enroute to their proposed destinations; projects are painstakingly, yet lovingly, being knitted; and home made goodies in a pretty snow-covered village tin were received in the post (thanks S&J). All that said, it seems like this household is in some sort of Christmas funk: we haven't even put up our little tree the size of my forearm.

To get us into the seasonal spirit, we went to the Lincoln Christmas Market yesterday. It was bigger than we anticipated and we had to use the car park and bus shuttle service, which, by the way, was nearly half the amount I brought in my wallet (grrrr!). We explored the 300 plus stalls laid out along the streets of historic Lincoln while sharing a bag of roasted chestnuts and huddling underneath one umbrella. The organizers of the event imposed a one-way pedestrian walking route for certain parts of the Market and when we noticed a missed aisle of stalls, we, like spawning salmons, had to fight our way through the hoards of people and, more importantly, avoid being poked by umbrellas.

The forecast predicted for Saturday wasn't at all promising but that didn't dampen us, at least not emotionally. But when the tour of the street market lead us to a pub, we immediately abandoned our wet rat look and took refuge in the warmth and dryness of the public house to allow our fingers to regain feeling after having sampled jams and chutneys in the gourmet food section of the Market.