Fly to Berlin:
Door to door, 8 hours - £230

Sleeper Train to Berlin
Door to door, 15 hours - £165
(plus the cost of lunch - soupe a l'oignon in the Marais watching snow fallng
over Paris)

Yes - I made it through a mad January and all the way to to Berlin for the
Film Festival. It's minus 12 outside, which makes the stone caravan almost
tropical, and the snow looks like falling diamonds.

It's been a trying few weeks - since January 3, when I went to work to find
that our sister company in the US had celebrated the New Year by losing our
domain name (and therefore our email) I have been working 70 hours weeks.
Every week. 50-60 hours a week at the corporate grindstone producing reports
and brochures, 10-20 hours a week writing script draft number 5 in time for
the festival.

Oh - and successfully breaking into the Stone Caravan and fitting the locks.

In comparison navigating transcontinental railways and negotiating a Prussian
winter is as relaxing as a week at the beach!

I'm taking as much time off as I can - sneaking out of the film market to
climb the Pergamon altar, or to gaze at Caspar David Friedrich's Moonrise at
Sea.

Which it is a Christmas Tree, triced up and well braced.

 

So, it wasn't actually up until Christmas Eve, and it came down on Twelve Night, and, apologies for the late posting, but I did manage to assemble a Patrick O'Brian tree, just in time, and get pictures....

(The house isn't mine, btw - one of the reasons why it went up during radio-silence.)

 

So - there were admirals -

 

Frigates

 

A ship of the line (I suspect it's the Mary Rose...)

 

Globes and Union Flags (correct from 1801 onwards)

 

A Nutmeg of Consolation

 

(I dipped a nutmeg in glue and fine silver glitter and attached it to the stray clasp of a old tree bauble)

 

And Bonden's own gun....

 

 

I couldn't find a sloth - but a venomous platypus seemed the next best option - and here he is, contesting ownership of a duff with Testudo Aubreii

 

 

There were also ship's biscuits - made much as I suspect the originals were - and marked with the broad arrow -

 

These are about 2cm squared, baked in an aga overnight - alas, the photo of them on the tree hasn't come out.

 

"At the present moment, the whole fleet is lit up. When I say 'lit up', I mean lit up by fairy lamps."

 

 

I'm pleased to say it met with the approval of a Royal Marine who dropped in on New Year's Eve, and has offered to help me start a collection for a Peninsula tree - so Jack can share honours with Dick Sharpe next year.

 

Sorry it took so long to post (- rather like a serial letter to Sophie...)