From out there, from the forest I come... (the first line of a German Christmas poem)

Today is the 3rd Advent, and yes, it has become cooler and very autumnal here too. But even though we are heading towards Christmas with giant steps and the night temperatures are sometimes already very fresh, it still feels like an endless autumn. The trees have turned yellow, but vegetables are still growing in the garden, although much more slowly and in fewer numbers. The sun sometimes allows us to sit on the terrace for an hour or two, sometimes even with an (admittedly long-sleeved) T-shirt, its rays feel incredibly good for the soul and in these moments we feel that we were right with everything we did!

The fig trees have already gathered their leaves rustling around them at the end of October, but in Albania they say: ‘Only when the plane trees shed their last leaves it's winter’. As far as I could see a few days ago in Tirana, they still have a some, even if very few remnants. So I'm assuming that just in time for the winter solstice on 21 December, the plane tree here will also say: winter time! I'm off for a good nap... .

And when the air is clear, you can see the mountain ridges many kilometres away that have already been covered in snow for a fortnight. What manifests itself here on some days merely in an awful lot of rain - and then often hours of power cuts - has become snow there. So in some regions, winter starts much earlier and often persists in the shady mountain valleys until March.

A lot has happened around the house! We've finally got a proper driveway and the paths are currently being paved with natural stone.

The olive trees, which had to make way for the house construction and were replanted, have finally been given a new location, the soil in front of the house has been prepared for our future vegetable beds and oranges, mandarins, lemons and other trees have moved in.

And our removals have mostly arrived :), we are only expecting a small shipment from Tutzing at the beginning of January. So every day is still full of work around furnishing, building shelves, drilling here and there, screwing, sewing, decorating, putting things away in the cellar, buying more wood, hooks, lamps, sockets etc., because something is still missing somewhere. We are expecting a large family visit at Christmas and we want all our guest rooms and the large cooking, dining and living area to be nice and cosy.

Pictures - even if they exist - will not be spoilt here yet - as we want to surprise our guests ;)!

And of course, Christmas shouldn't be ignored either! Unfortunately, I had to answer my sister's question whether we also had a tree with no because of these three fellows...

Nothing is safe of the paws of our 5 month old cats! Every tree, every Christmas tree ball within reach would be a great new - and quickly destroyed - toy in seconds, so every decoration is out of their reach of cats' paws ;)

But as Andrea was probably one of Santa Claus' Christmas elves in one of her previous lives, it looks Christmassy in our house too - and she bakesloads of biscuits too!

Speaking of Christmas and Albania - yes, we live in a predominantly Muslim country here and there are many more mosques than churches, and the sound of the muezzin can be heard from the mosques several times a day.

But in Albania, people love all public holidays simply because they offer an opportunity to celebrate ;). That's why we witness a ‘Christmas madness’ in the big shopping centres here that can easily keep up with the UK or the USA...

Armies of Santas and all kinds of Christmas decorations for inspiration in the spirit of ‘this could be your Christmas living room’...

With this in mind - a happy 3rd Advent to all of you, a Christmas season that is just the way everyone likes it best, and a wonderful start to 2025 in advance - because we probably won't read each other here again before the New Year.