So here we are... the only silent night this country ever sees, and a three-day horriday...

We're already just about on lock-down as a nation... a few hold outs to get more money out of buyers, but... in forty-five minutes this place is gonna look like everyone died and the dead stillness will be overwhelming.

I did my shopping.... three days of nothing to be had otherwise.... and was on-line getting 'presents' from my game. They are doing an 'event'. Lots more loot when you kill things, and then sell what they drop. I could also turn my horse Estella into a reindeer, but I wouldn't do that to the poor dumb creature.

And since I declared myself the guild grinch... and everyone was ooooo.... Merry Christmas, I was all, 'oh yeah, happy horridays you guys.'

So we're down to the crunch... three days of absolute quiet.

I just spoke with Peter... five minutes is ok and he is half-way there... it was just more sadness. He didn't realise that today is Heiliger Abend, and for austrians, the 24th is the very very very big one, not the twenty-fifth.

I asked him about their Christmas party, and he was all 'it was all right', but am not sure he remembered. Juliana told me they were sort of overwhelmed the day before it when I visited. They have fifty patients, and 100 people rsvp'd.

Their common rooms aren't all too spacious, so it was a worry. On the other hand... fifty people, and two visitors per? Tja, just brush them aside, hey, and forget 'em. That ratio is telling.

Today must have been good. He said he'd eaten too much at lunch, and it was fried fish and potato salad with mayonaise, and he was uncomfortable. That was an hour after lunch, so I guess it varies with him still... who knows how the mind works? I have this idea that his is sort of like a fun-house at the moment.... the room with the distorted mirrors. And black holes. Something like that, anyway.

And yeah, on Christmas Eve, you eat fish here. I often talk to the tobacconist lady I see first thing every morning. We both have a passion for cooking, so I said, 'I have a Christmas gift for you.' And gave her my recipe for Filet of Sole in Sherry out of my New England cookbook that Marion gave me, and is very precious to me. Because the woman said she was doing sole tonight. Don't know if she'll try it, but she seemed very happy to have it.

And I dragged my sorry arse over to the market to wish Millie a merry merry... very early, before she got deluged with demands for flower arrangement miracles at the last minute. She drilled me on what I was planning to eat for the 'horridays'.. I said, 'nothing special'.. I'll bake a chicken breast in the oven, and that will hold me for two days, and the next will have Breinwurst.

'YOU! A four-star cook! Oh, RRREN!'

'It's not the same, doing it for yourself, and gawwd knows I've not much appetite these days...'

I mentioned the sole in sherry and she said, 'Oh gawwd is that good!' It's a simple, fast, very elegant dish. I normally had to work on the 24th, or better said, volunteered, but it was stress pure. Up at four, at the market at five to buy three days' worth of food, dump it in our kitchen, then do my shift, and coming home, I did NOT want to do an extravaganza, and that recipe was perfect. Delicious, festive, done in no time. Peter had cooked the potatoes for the salads, and had prepared it, a rapunzel salad with bits of garlic and potato in it and with pumpkin seed oil, our local specialty, and chilled a bottle of champagne. And had bought some very expensive desserts from the top bakery in town. So I had 20 minutes of cooking, and we sat down and let go, lit the tree, and the advent wreath, We never did big gifts at Christmas. I'd get some nice clothes, maybe, he'd get a ritzy calendar, he loved art ones... We kept it low key, and in the real spirit of things. The big gifts always came when the one or other of us never expected it. Sometime during the year, out of the blue... sort of a declaration of love. I've always loved that about him. And I would do the same, of course.

I sort of liked it like that. It was more about tradition than anything else.

Millie was my 'victim' if I was test driving recipes for an upcoming dinner... brought samples, and she was always
'Oh, THIS one you have to give me!' I assume she spread them through half the market. It got so I nearly didn't trust her... she always said they were perfect.

Just another facet of how subversive I could be... smile.

This is probably one of the saddest Christmases I will ever have.

I sincerely wish that my readers have a very nice one, a thoughtful one, without the stress, and think about the important things one should be grateful for... health, good relationships, love wherever it comes from... and just STOP... and breathe a bit. I think that is what it should be about.... and wish it for all.

Merry Merry, etc. etc.