Christmas is coming

I am really missing all the Christmas hustle and bustle here!! You just wouldn’t know we are only 3 weeks away! Apart from a few artificial trees up at the entrance to one supermarket, and a few sad, dusty decorations on the shelves, you really would not know what was coming! Plus the fact that the weather is all wrong! I’ve often thought that it must be strange in countries like Australia to have Christmas in the boiling heat…it just doesn’t seem right!

However, I must tell you a little about the only two Christmas experiences I have had in Nigeria. Firstly, I went to a practice of a choir group that I have just joined (yes, I miss my singing with you all as well!) We sang a lot of Christmas carols at the end of our practice, which was really nice! We were also learning to sing the Finnish national anthem (in Finnish) to sing at the Finnish Embassy next Thursday (which is Finnish National Day). Finnish is very hard, and all the words seem to have a lot of yyy nnn sss and kkk in them! It will all be very interesting, I am sure!

Also, on Saturday, there is a big German Christmas Market held in Abuja. There are quite a lot of German people staying here, who mainly work for a big construction company, and they make a lot of traditional German craft things to sell in aid of charity. There will also be mulled wine, bratwurst (German sausage) and sauerkraut (German cabbage)…ask Mrs Hackney for more details on these! I think that the hot wine will be served in a room that is made very cold to be like a typical German (or British) winter. I shall try to take some photos of this all, and put them in this blog.


…..It is Sunday now, and the Christmas Market was wonderful! It was a little bit like the Lincoln market (has anyone been?) I saw a very jolly Santa there who loved having his photo taken. There were lots of stalls and good things to eat. The mulled wine was served in a refrigerated container, which was decorated with Fir trees and twinkly lights. There were two huge air conditioning units on, so that it was really cold. We stood at tables and drank our hot mulled wine, and listened to the carols. It really felt like Christmas!



I need to say thank you to gardening club, for your message. I am really pleased that you have won some more bushes, and I think that you should plant them near the hawthorn hedge on the edge of the car park. The birds will love this, and it will give more cover for the birds, and hopefully will help to attract blue tits into our nest box again! Emma, I am really glad that you are all trying to be good for Mrs Cox and everyone; there are a lot of you this year, and a lot of work to be done, so keep busy!

Thank you Class 2 for your questions for Grace. I will ask her these next week and will tell you her answers in the next blog. I am still waiting for any ideas for a new name for the blog….I will then replace the “Letters from Nigeria” title…and don’t forget there is a special prize for the winner!

That’s all for now! Next week will be my last blog until I come back in January….so get thinking of that new title and post it on the blog.

Have fun, still missing you loads!
Mrs Sanchez xxx