Christmas – My London+

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Well, with everyone suffering from colds, it has been difficult to get everything done this Christmas. I was the first to go down with it, and it wiped out a whole week of plans, including two concerts I was to sing in. Thankfully, I’m now coming out the other end of it, but my hubby now has it and coughing well, and my eldest son who still lives with us is at the beginning of it.

Somehow in the last couple of days I’ve caught up with myself and baked a quick fruit cake yesterday (see above) and made my family favourite treat, marzipan sweets. This morning I’ve baked a batch of mince pies and made the stuffing ready for tomorrow. Presents are wrapped, but not under the tree as our puppy will just tear everything to shreds! Basically, I’m done and can relax a little until tomorrow when the juggling of various dishes takes place in the oven!

Home made marzipan sweets

Mince pies

Before the snow we had, which lasted about a week, we had some very heavy frosts, which were photogenic. Here is a selection of photos I took, as well as those I took of the snow. I can’t remember another time when we had snow before Christmas. It’s rare in the south of England. Usually it arrives in January or February, though I do once remember having a snow shower in June. Now that is rare!

Pattern in the shed window

A misty and frost morning

And then came the snow

Back garden

Introducing Rue, my son’s 5 month old King Charles Cavalier, who snuggled up with me on the sofa when I wasn’t well.

Patterns on the porch door

Hope you enjoyed that little selection of photos. Have a lovely Christmas and see you soon. Thank you for reading my blog this year and I look forward to sharing more adventures with you in 2023.

I’ll finish with this haunting song. Not exactly happy, but I love it and it makes me cry, like watching The Railway Children.

Covent Garden Christmas

Covent Garden – sleigh and trees. You can have your photo taken in the sleigh.

I needed to buy a present from the shop at The London Transport Museum, so it was a good excuse to enjoy the delights of Covent Garden. I’d heard there were flurries of snow on the hour too. The snow was a little disappointing, but hey, it was fun.

Inside Covent Garden

We mustn’t forget the history of Covent Garden

One of the streets off Covent Garden

Of course, Covent Garden is well known for its street entertainers. Here is a little clip from one of them.

The flurries of snow came from a balcony. I took two videos to try and get the best shot of this deluge!

After leaving Covent Garden we decided to walk to Leicester Square tube, but we missed it, so we carried on walking back to Waterloo Station. At least we got to see other pretty lights.

St Martin’s area, near Trafalgar Square

At Charing Cross station there was a rather lovely tree. I don’t know, no videos for ages and then four come along at the same time!

Walking down toward Embankment tube station

From the walkway at Charing Cross to Hungerford Bridge

Crossing the Thames with an almost full moon – photo doesn’t do it justice, but I only had my mobile with me.

South Bank with The Royal Festival Hall to the right

At South Bank

The Christmas tree at Waterloo station

Well, I hope that’s got you into the Christmas mood! Until next time, stay warm (it snowed here last night!)

Five Sleeps until Christmas

Well, it could be a challenging Christmas again this year with threats of further restrictions and potential lockdowns. But all is not lost. With all my Christmas events finished now, I am using this week to get baking. Mince pies have just come out of the oven and I’m making some snacks using chickpeas, honey, cinnamon and nutmeg and baked in the oven.

Tomorrow is the shortest day, which means days will begin to get longer. Spring (as my dad would have said) is just around the corner. The tree outside our house has buds. Another clue to the coming spring. It’s good to have something to look forward to.

Lockdown or not, there will be walks to take, and I will have more time again. But for now, let the carols continue and the lights blaze. May the magic of Christmas be with you.

Here are a few photos I’ve taken out and about. Whatever you are doing this Christmas, I wish you a very Happy Christmas and thank you for dropping by here this year. I hope to share more walks and places of interest in the coming year.

Someone has decorated the holly bush in our road.

Just one tree as part of All Saints Church Christmas Tree Festival

Christmas is coming

The photo above shows my writing and hobby room, formerly my youngest son’s bedroom. It has been Christmasyfied! I have been here wrapping presents and writing letters this weekend. The bed (to the left) is littered with wrapping paper and wrapped presents. My son, whose bedroom it was, would be mortified at its state. He is such a tidy person. Well, he was very good at pushing things into cupboard and drawers! But actually he is probably the most tidy person in our family.

The week has been dominated by Christmas events. Singing rehearsals, performing in the market place of a nearby town with the choir, and on Friday I helped make around seventy Christingles, something I have done every year for nearly thirty years! We could do them in our sleep, yet every year we have that same query – how many raisins and sweets on the sticks?!

With all this going on, there has been little time for photography, but do not fear (sorry!), I have some I made earlier (Blue Peter fans will get that!). I am so glad that I am busy this year. After the events of last year when we could not make Christingles, attend any carol services (except online), nor sing outdoors or otherwise, this is magic. Despite the new Omicron variant threatening to spoil it all, I am very positive and intend to just get on with life.

So enjoy the photo selection. If there are any repeats, my apologies.

The bears are back this year – shopping centre, Kingston

Christmas socks are an essential item of clothing for a Christmas concert!

Christingle (Father Christmas came to help make them and ate all the raisins and sweets off the sticks here! Santa has his own adventures on Twitter with me throughout December! Catch up @heather91404743))

What is Christmas without a good Christmas Carol? This one is really sad. I promise I’ll post something more upbeat next time. I first heard this carol when my mum and dad (sadly no longer alive) sang it with their choir when I was a teenager. I have loved it ever since.

Getting Festive

Yesterday was Advent Sunday and on the 1st December I can bring out the Advent Calendar, Advent Candle, plug myself into Christmas music and wear my Christmas socks! Oh, yes, it’s that season, and the one that keeps me going through the dark, cold, dreary days of winter.

After the lockdown of last year I am hoping to get to a live carol concert this year. I am trying to stay positive after the recent announcements about the new South African variant and get on with life.

So this week I am sharing a few seasonal photos from last week and this morning (out in the garden in my nightwear!), as well as a few I took the previous week after an impromptu walk along the River Thames in Kingston.

So, who is ready for Christmas? Done your shopping yet? I have a friend who does all hers in August – far too early. November is the earliest I buy anything. Anyway, I hope this gets you in the mood. There may well be more in the coming weeks!

Nice to see the bears back – Bentall Centre, Kingston

Christmas at Canary Wharf

I didn’t expect to be blogging again this year, because I didn’t expect to be going anywhere, but on the 23rd December I helped my son take presents and food over to his girlfriend’s flat to get ready for Christmas. It was mum to the rescue as they had no food for a Christmas dinner. People had gone crazy buying and some supermarket shelves were empty. I gave him some of my vegetables and we wandered around a depleted Waitrose looking for a chicken, but there wasn’t a chicken to be had. All that was left was pheasant or partridge. He decided on the pheasant. Earlier I had managed to secure the purchase of two individual Christmas puddings for them (all large ones had already sold).

My son took me to a part of Canary Wharf that I didn’t know, and it was really pretty. The flat overlooks a basin where various boats are moored. I had to keep stopping to take photos, hoping my battery wouldn’t give up on me as it crept to single figures!

After we dropped off the goodies we did a tour of the lights before coming home. There is always some new public art at Canary Wharf to look at and my son took me to see the famous traffic lights (see below) that I’d heard about but had never seen before.

This was a rather lovely unexpected trip. We were very conscious of Covid rules, but I never felt unsafe. There were no crowds and public transport has always been one of the safest places during this pandemic.

Christmas is cancelled

Yesterday, the 20th December, the whole of London, as well as many other counties in the south and south east of England went into a new Tier 4 lockdown. With that comes restrictions that no households should mix, even over Christmas, except support bubbles already in place. Basically, Christmas is cancelled. People outside Tier 4 cannot come in, and vice versa. Families have had to change all their Christmas plans, they can no longer spend the day with parents, children, grandchildren and wider family members.

Apparently there is a new strain of the virus which is spreading faster and it seems to have come from Kent and has spread across London. What has annoyed people is that a week ago we were told it was okay, we would get to see our families over Christmas, but this decision came on Saturday night and came into force at midnight that day. There was no time to adjust. Shops shut on Saturday afternoon and will no open again until who knows when. The only shops allowed to open are essential shops, and cafes for takeaways. No hairdressers, gyms or anything else, and we’ve all been told to stay home.

Well, you can imagine this has plunged a lot of people into despair. It is hard to find anything good right now, but I’m trying to. Today is the winter solstice – the shortest day. I have to say to me it feels like the longest day because it is so dark today. It is raining and I still have my light on at getting on for nine o’clock in the morning. I have been watching sunrise live from Stonehenge on Facebook – no sun! It’s raining there too! However, after this shortest day, light will stretch out ever so slowly, but nonetheless it will. Spring is on its way, and with it thousands of people will have been vaccinated against Covid 19. It has to get better, doesn’t it?

I can tell that a lot of the people who drop by this blog, or who follow, are from other parts of the world, and I am sure you have had your share of dark moments this year. I try to keep as upbeat as I can when posting, but I have to say I am struggling right now. It will pass, I know.

I don’t want leave this post on a low, so I am posting a few festive photos. Christmas will happen anyway – it will just be very different. Thank you for reading this blog. Thanks to my followers, and thanks to everyone else who drops by now and then, or has just come across this today. Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas. Let’s hope that 2021 is a better one for us all.

Christmas comes to Morden Hall Park

On a gloomy and very cold day last week I met a friend at Morden Hall Park. We scurried into the garden centre shop to have a look around, but also to warm up! We then decided to walk, but it was so muddy and so cold we didn’t get far. Instead we wandered into the second hand book shop for a browse before heading to the National Trust cafe, which has reopened, albeit on a limited scale. We bought soup – I mean what else do you need on a cold day! Although sitting indoors with someone not in your household is not part of the rules right now, we found a table in the corner of the cafe underneath the open windows. So we were away from others and in a well ventilated area. It wasn’t warm enough to discard coats! It just gave us a chance to eat and have a catch-up. It was a very short get-together that day.

Now, as Covid numbers are rising again, there is talk of London going into tier 3 during the week before Christmas. This will mean all cafes and restaurants closing again, except for take-aways. I have to say I am staying away from busy shops. Parts of London are so crowded (Oxford Street) I don’t want to be there. I always try to seek out the quiet places. That’s natural for me anyway, but now even more.

I hope you enjoy these photos, most of which were taken in the garden centre.