Happy Holidays!

It's been awhile since I updated here... We've been keeping busy with Christmas parties in the restaurant, plus the kids have been busy too. Katia has been taking extra ballet lessons in preparation for her first exam next week; plus she's been attending a few rehearsals for the local pantomime (Rapunzel) in which she's landed the part of a "cute and scared" bunny! haha! Christian has recently started playing football for one of the local teams - they practice on Wednesdays and matches are on Saturdays. He seems to be enjoying it so far despite the fact that he's a beginner not to mention it's getting pretty cold and wet out there!

Check out the mud!

They are both really looking forward to Christmas - but first comes Christian's 10th birthday on the 18th.

For those of you not in the loop: 7 weeks ago Martin had a crash on his bicycle and injured his knee. He could barely walk after he crashed and had to get a local farmer to give him a lift back into town (he crashed in the middle of nowhere!) Over the past several weeks, he's seen his GP a few times who has advised him to just "wait and see" though a few weeks ago he drained quite alot of fluid from above the knee. Martin's also gone for several physiotherapy sessions though the pain and swelling have persisited and it was on the physio's advice that Martin go back to his GP and insist on seeing a knee specialist at the Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry. This past Monday Martin got an appointment with the knee specialist. He managed to get in on a cancellation though it was a private consultation (meaning he had to pay £130) but the doctor was obviously very knowledgable and in his opinion the knee isn't TOO bad. He's got quite good movement and stability but since it's still swollen and painful after 7 weeks there's definitely something wrong and he's going to try to get Martin back within the first two weeks of January to do some keyhole surgery. So, with any luck - by the time we visit Canada in February he should be feeling (and walking) much better!

Apart from that - we are looking forward to having guests over Christmas! Martin's cousin Jörn and his girlfriend Karin will be visiting from Germany during the holidays - I wonder what they will make of our Welsh-Canadian Christmas?