L'expedition to Deutschland (part 2) - this is long; you can skip bits if you want to.

Princesses defrosting over hot chocolate

According to the Stuttgarter Zeitung, the night that followed was the coldest for 31 years. On hearing this news, le Comte immediately slipped on his long johns and rushed out try the car. It coughed lamely several times, as any self respecting Spanish vehicle is bound to do when removed to such an alien environment, but then to its credit, it spluttered to life. The Comte sat there half-dressed, testing the heating, his brow furrowed, before allowing himself to be persuaded in for coffee.
‘Tonight,’ Herr S- announced, ‘Ve vill put your car in the garage. Then you do not need to vorry.’ The Comte and I were grateful. Temperamental lot, the Spaniards, and we needed this one to get us home.
But first we had the Christmas markets to explore and our hosts had planned an outing to the town of E- where a famous medieval market is held every yuletide. Our moody Spanish car could stay where it was, Herr S- assured us. He, himself, would drive.
The Princesses put on as many clothes as they could find, le Comte wound his Everton scarf round his neck and pulled his hat down over his ears and I donned what can best be described as a duvet. We were all set. We climbed into Herr S- £100,000 Mercedes tank and set off at some speed along the icy roads.
The market was less crowded than the Family S- had predicted.
‘That is because it is minus 13,’ Herr S- surmised. He was undoubtedly right. Icicles clung to the fountain in the Square as if frozen by the touch of an icy finger. Odd flakes of snow drifted from an iron grey sky. The cold was so cold it burnt our skin and Princess 1, who is exceptionally sensitive, was turning into an ice maiden. She began to cry noisy, frozen tears.
But the market was beautiful. Master S- and Princess 2 stroked a very short donkey in a animated crib scene; medieval stall holders with surprisingly good teeth for the Middle Ages, roasted chestnuts over burning braziers, we bought heavy, handmade baubles for our Sapin (which unfortunately make the branches sag), drank Gluhwein, ate fat German Rotewurst and watched someone who spoke very bad German juggling flaming torches. Finally, when we couldn’t stand it anymore, we found a cafe that sold hot chocolate and real whipped cream and Princess 1 was able to thaw out at last.
On the second day the Men visited the Mercedes museum (le Comte has lots of photos, you can write and ask him – he might even autograph them for you). And afterwards they tested out all the vehicles in the showroom so le Comte could decide what to spend his money on when we sell the Chateau. I had thought another house might be a good idea to start with, but le Comte says it depends how much he has left.
We girls went ‘Holy Shit Shopping’. This, as Princess 1 pointed out with some amusement, was a very German experience. First you take the train and then the tram to a derelict warehouse not far from the centre of Stuttgart. You will know it is the right place because of the large sign outside: Holy Shit Shopping. Fraulein S- explained that it is fashionable to give things English slang names (American, I insisted). People were converging on the derelict warehouse from every direction. Many had dreadlocks, fingerless gloves, pushchairs with snotty-nosed babies, hats knitted in Nordic patterns and all joined the long queue which was (thankfully given the temperature) moving fairly rapidly. The queue did not suggest control over the number of people inside the warehouse, rather the time it took to extract three euros from each. As lots of people were going in and no one is coming out it was very, very full. So full that you couldn’t reach the Holy Shit to buy it even if you wanted to. Furthermore, Holy Shit did not appear to be cheap. Although much of it looked interesting in an artistic, alternative kind of way; lots of kids clothes with felt motifs and spotty patterns, wallets made from recycled bike tyres and magnets and posters with one large word in German (such as Liebe) positioned slightly right of centre. Altogether a very cool place, despite the blower heaters. Outside it continued to be cooler still and people kept coming in. So when the princesses and Fraulein S- had stocked up on magnets and things to dangle from various body parts, we fought our way to the exit, buying chocolate covered fruit-on-sticks from the Stuttgart Christmas market on the way home.
In the evening our hosts fed us pork with worms (a Swabian speciality) and in the morning le Comte and I got up early, persuaded the Spanish car to renounce its cosy garage and set off on the long drive home, leaving the Princesses to take their chance on British Airways to get them back to dear old Angleterre.
A snow flurry, it turned out, immobilised all of central southern England that afternoon, and the plane landed at Heathrow just before the airport closed. The tired Princesses sat staring at the seat in front for two hours while the 737 waited for somewhere to park. But that is their story and you can ask them for details if you wish.
Meanwhile, le Comte and I battled through the heavy rain and arrived at Chateau Coldspot that same evening, to find that temperatures had plummeted, flood waters had risen and Princess 2’s cockatiel was very pleased indeed to see us. It was nearly Christmas.