Christmas

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Christmas Eve about 15 of us enjoyed a wonderful feast from different countries. My desperately chosen contribution was Christmas Pudding, the recipe for which I actually have in my computer having typed it out for a friend a couple of years ago.

As soon as we had finished we hurried to the cathedral for Midnight Mass which begins here at 10pm. It was very crowded and we had to stand in the side aisle where we could still glimpse proceedings but had a better view on a large CTTV screen. Then back to bed and up early to the station. It was very quiet in the snow covered streets, but really busy at the station. The train arrived on time but there were various annotations on the departures board about delays. It should have been a 41/2 hour journey but ended up taking 81/2! The worst bit was at Frankfurt Flughafen, where we were obliged to alight as our train was deemed to have a defect. In due course it was taken away and were were left to wait for something else on the VERY COLD open air platform.Trains to Cologne appeared and disappeared from the indicator board like Sydney ferries. One minute coming on the A side of the platform, the next on the left.

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