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New Beginnings…
Happy New Year! So, it’s that time of year once again. It’s been such an amazing year. I would never have thought we would be living in Berlin this time last year. Who knows where we will end up this time next year? This is the day when everyone frantically thinks up New Year’s Resolutions. And I guess I have done the same. This year I plan on learning to crochet and get my craft on. One of my loveliest friends is getting married in October and I want to wear a dress that I made on my sewing machine! I plan on creating a Pinterest Account so you can…
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Christmas Cookie Time!
Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree… No Christmas would be complete without Christmas biscuits. We made a lot of them and here is what we did: You will need: 100g sugar 100g butter 275g flour 1 egg You put everything into a bowl and mix like crazy. Then my trick is to put the mixture into the fridge for half an hour to cool it down, as when you touch the mixture you are warming it up and this makes it sticky and hard to use. Next, put flour on your hands, the rolling pin and the surface you are going to put the mixture on and roll out the…
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The Excellent Egg Café…
Some would say it’s rather egg-cellent… Every time we come to Liverpool we frequent Jason’s favourite café, the Egg Café. They serve vegetarian/ vegan food and their portions are mahoosive. The first time I chose a meal I wanted a starter of melted cheese on toast. I received a huge plate with the two biggest slices of toast I have ever seen. They were resting on a noodle salad, a rice salad and an actual salad. It was delicious and great value for money. This week we met some family friends in the Egg Café for a bit of a board game session. We started at noon with cake. Then…
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FIVE DAYS – Terry's Chocolate Orange ice cream
Baby it’s cold outside… OMG! Yes, you read the title correctly… Terry’s Chocolate Orange has a limited edition ice cream. Today we went into M&S and Tesco supermarket and Jason exclaimed: ‘Do you think we should move back to England?’ after seeing all the food available. I know we have been living in Berlin for less than half a year but food from home is always going to be exciting… We both love German food. In particular the variety of sausages and meat. There are meters and meters of former animals in the supermarket shelves in Germany, but no fish. Here in England, I was astonished to see so many…
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Six days until turkey time!!
Driving home for Christmas… So we may or may not have forgotten to post yesterday. In my defence I would like to mention that we forgot to even open our Kinder Egg Advent Calender too. It was a busy day… So here I am, just letting you all what we found today! It’s a meter long chocolate finger packet! A-mazing!! Half of it has already been devoured, but surprisingly, the other half is still there. Oh… well. It was. Yummy! Get it while you can! Nom nom nom…
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EIGHT DAYS UNTIL XMAS – My Prince has come?
Once upon a time… So the Germans among you will probably already know this, but I have always wondered what these ginger biscuit hearts were for. Some of them are enormous and some of them small. All the messages are cute but I had never seen anyone actually buy one until last week. A father bought a huge heart and put it around his little girl’s neck, like a huge necklace. Then a couple of days later, while we were at a small Christmas Market with my entire German family, I was presented with one of these gifts by Jason. He had obviously found the most mortifying one and for…
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NINE DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS: Walnuts
We had some friends over last night for some home-made mulled wine and we all tucked into the giant bag of walnuts that Vanessa’s grandma gave us for Christmas. Apparently they are a Christmas thing, along with tonnes of oranges/tangerines. I like it! Thankfully Vanessa’s grandma was extra thoughtful and included a big metal nutcracker inside the bag too so we had a way of opening them. The nut-cracking soon turned into a challenge of who could crack the walnut cleanly in half and I managed it just once. One attempt resulted in a little nutty heart which we couldn’t bear to eat. I managed to get one nicely in…
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TEN DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS – Advent
A candle is burning, a candle of Joy; A candle to welcome brave Mary’s new boy. Our hearts fill with wonder and eyes light and glow As Joy brightens winter like sunshine on snow. If I’m honest, I didn’t even know there was an Advent song (see lyrics for the third Advent above). However here in Germany, Advent seems to be a big deal. Instead of people emailing and saying hello, I have received numerous messages from people saying ‘enjoy your first Advent’ etc. Today a neighbour wished us a joyful third Advent… As children, we always had four candles set out on the table in the run up to…
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ELEVEN DAYS TO CHRISTMAS!! And I bought… A Camera
Papa-paparazzi… It’s Christmas, a season where people buy each other presents. Here at L&A we like to do things a little differently and we went ahead and bought ourselves something instead, just because. Normally I’m the one in the relationship who buys things without thinking. I remember walking into the ukulele shop in East London thinking I liked the sound the instrument made. I walked out (to Jason’s horror) with a super expensive but stunning red ukulele. I had also on a whim bought a tuner. And a whole load of music books. And signed up for classes. Ahem. Anyway, usually Jason is the one who will literally spend weeks…
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12 Days to Christmas: Poodle Surprise
On the twelfth day of Christmas… The countdown to Christmas is well under way here at Casa Leather and Abel. The advent calendar already has over half its doors opened, we’re burning through our advent candles at an alarming rate and we have already enjoyed many, many mugs of mulled wine at German winter markets because, hey, ’tis the season! There are 12 days left to Christmas (if you haven’t already been keeping count!) and to celebrate, we want to share some seasonal fun we’ve been having every day in the run up to the big day. This is the first instalment on the 12 Days to Christmas and will…