For me, the best time of the year in Germany is advent. As a child, I don't remember much about advent apart from the Blue Peter coat hanger candle thing they made every year, and singing that song about most highly flavoured gravy. (Sorry, this is a bit British- and my generation-specific!) Here though, people look forward to, and celebrate, advent just as much as Christmas itself. There are advent markets which precede the Christmas markets. And then there are pre-Christmas markets. Speaking of which, we had seen an advertisement for one in a nearby village. CG was very keen to go along and have a look. It seemed that, even for a German, this was somewhat of a novelty. We drove around for a bit, scanning the deserted and foggy village for signs of pre-Christmas life, and were about to give up when Hedda (who always spots things first) saw an arrow. Thus we came upon the merry scene, which actually turned out to be people dressed up in not very authentic medieval clothes selling old pieces of wood and broken furniture and poking various small fires. The setting was a saw mill at the side of a road. There were various yuletide fun-seekers wondering around looking doleful. The dank mist didn't help, it has to be said. The children all said in unison, please NO. How lucky we were that we could see all this from the road, without even having to get out of our car and suffer the embarrassment of paying an entry fee and then leaving again after five miserable minutes! We drove to a filling station and bought ice creams, then went back to our sofa.
Anyway you must be wondering what all this has to do with the title today. I used the word gingerbread, but really it is 'Spekulatius' - an amazingly delicious spiced biscuit that is eaten here (and in several other northern European countries) during the festive season. Imagine my delight when I discovered that Spekulatius-scented toilet paper was on sale at my favourite supermarket*. Not only does it waft a delicate aroma around the bathroom - it is printed with reindeer, snowflakes and pine cones. I bought up 20 rolls straight away, because my guess is it'll be sold out by the end of November.
*Penny Markt, in case any Germans reading this want to rush out and get some before it's too late!
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