Aaaand…breathe. The out of office is on, most of the presents are wrapped*, the turkey crown is in the freezer** and the cake is marzipanned and practically hiccupping with the amount of rum it has ingested. The presents for France are in Ealing ready to go over with London sister today, and we had a very delicious lunch at Remoli complete with aperitifs and pudding (affogato, of course). Christmas can now happen.
*Despite definitely having finished the shopping last weekend, I still ended up in Flying Tiger in Ealing Broadway as the stocking presents didn’t look enough.
**We are going to TT1’s for Christmas lunch but the utter horror on Thing 2’s face when she realised this meant I wasn’t doing Christmas dinner was a sight to behold. Yes, I am a sucker but at least I drew the line at buying a full turkey just so I could make soup, despite the face. Boxing Day will be dinner for us then!
On today’s mooch round Ealing we visited the Christmas markets that seem to be popping up in every available shopping centre – the best was at Pitzhanger Manor, but even that was only about ten stalls. London seems to have taken the idea of these markets but hasn’t really managed to get the hang of them. The one in Ealing Broadway Centre was six stalls, half of which were overpriced food and the others were overpriced tat. There is a limit to the number of scrunchies and Swiftie-style bracelets that any one person really needs, and this is coming from someone who remained faithful to the scrunchie throughout the noughties and still has a bagful in case I decide to grow my hair our again. I went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park once – when it was free to enter – and swore never, ever, ever again. Having said that, the one on the South Bank is nice but there are way too many people at it, and if there’s one thing I cannot be having with in London it’s people who dither about the place. Chancery Lane tube station has been plagued this week by people in rush hour who go through the gates and then just…stop. Even my sunny disposition has been somewhat taxed by these muppets. Add to this people who can’t read the ‘stand on the right’ signs, people who choose to stop in the middle of pavements for conversations, people who walk slowly in busy places (I would have voted for a slow lane on Oxford Street) and anyone who hangs around by the entrances to tube platforms.
Even less fun this week was trying to despatch a parcel to World of Books – Royal Mail was not an option, only InPost or Collect Plus, so I chose InPost as they had two lockers in Epping and Collect Plus are in weird little shops. One locker was full, the other was broken – so I had to go to Ongar. It cost me more in bus fare to post the stupid parcel than I was earning from the books. This is the downside of living in a village in between two small towns, of course. Well, that and the buses which are a nightmare at the moment thanks to roadworks in at least four separate places on the route.
Things making me happy this week
- Coffee and a catch-up with Rhiannon and cuddles with baby Otis on Friday, and the best (only) mince pie I have had this year made by Raf.
- A Christmas drink with my lovely colleagues on Thursday at St John
- Cat socks
- Starting a non-Christmas themed crochet project
- The library getting all the books I’d requested in at once – binging Vaseem Khan’s ‘Inspector Chopra’ series. Highly recommended.
- Richard Franks’ take on teaching A Christmas Carol
- The expression on my idiot cat’s face when caught with his new catnip banana
Today I am having coffee with Miriam and Edith after a chilly swim with Jill – and then I am going to do as little as possible for several days!
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
Midnight at Malabar House/The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra – Vaseem Khan
Hogfather – Terry Pratchett (Audible) – and the collected BBC dramatisations of various Discworld novels
Two for the Dough – Janet Evanovich
Making Thinking Visible – Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church, Karin Morrison
What Kirsty did next 