Escape the washing-up weekend!

Christmas seems like a long time ago now and it was only 4 days ago! We had a lovely quiet Christmas just Jase and me. Jase cooked us beautiful 350g fillet steaks fresh from Scotland, I did roast potatoes and parsnips it was delicious! We had a really lazy couple of days watching TV and for me I had fun playing on my new Nintendo DS and listening to my new digital radio!

Yesterday we headed over to the Carlton Mitre Hampton Court Hotel - see my previous entry in November - we arrived mid afternoon to see the Hampton Court ice rink heaving with young skaters. Our hotel room had river views, and was luxuriously large including a complimentary mini bar and decanted spirits, pictured below!

Here is the view from our window at sunset last nightWe had a lovely meal in the restaurant last night, of duck breast in a ginger and red wine sauce. I had a grapefruit and Campari jelly that was delicious.

This morning we went for a walk in Bushey Park hoping to see some deer, we did see some green parakeets who seem to be spreading right across south London now. Jase got some pics of the parakeets so I'll add them later. There were lots of waterfowl on the little lakes. They were rather excitable as there were a lot of children feeding them bread and they were scooting across the water from one flapping bread bag to another.

But before we saw the ducks and swans we were lucky enough to see a large herd of deer. The stag pictured below seemed to be the sentinel keeping an eye on the bikes, dogs and people coming close to his herd. Whilst he watched us warily take pictures two white stags were battling one another clattering their antlers. The picture of the stag below shows him checking our a cyclist who was getting a bit too close for his comfort.
We also saw this funny looking goose - I think it is a goose!
I also liked the look of this tree against the winter morning sky.

We only stayed for about 2 hours in the park as the cold was so bitter my fingers were becoming numb!

Yule

Today is Yule or the winter solstice the shortest day of the year. I have a feeling that the sun stands still as such for a day or so, so the sun will actually rise a minute later tomorrow and set a minute later, but by Wednesday the day will be a minute longer. I'll make sure I use that minute wisely! So the long dark nights will get that little bit shorter, eventually. I like to celebrate Yule before the big festivities of Christmas begin. Today we had a quiet day. I cooked us a nice and very easy curry using the delicious curry sauce company jalfrezi sauce, then had ice cream and a lovely lush bath. Very relaxing.

Team Christmas

Last night was my team Christmas meal - there are only 3 of us in the team although Nat makes 4 but she is on maternity leave right now. Andrew, Carla and I had a cocktail or two first and then went to Carlucio's for a lovely meal.

Andrew and Carla

All of us

At Carlucio's I had the pasta fungi which was delicious and then a pancake with icecream and forest fruits. I bought a huge chocolate chip panatone for Jase and I from Carlucio's deli.

Today is my non working day which I am spending waiting for parcel deliveries whilst Jase tries to fix the leaky bath. This means that we may be without a bath for a day or two - not a nice thought. Whilst Jase works I am on call for the Amazon delivery man. I am quite cross about Christmas deliveries - I ordered an organic Christmas hamper for two of my friends back on the 7th December from Marks and Spencer to be delivered today. I got an email this morning saying that it would not be delivered and they did not know when it would be delivered. I canceled it all and will now have to venture out to get something different.

Dark December

I haven't written much this month so far as I have been quite ill for the last week. I seem to be on the mend although Jase is now poorly.

It has been busy at work as well which hasn't helped. Hopefully work should get better now too.

I was really disappointed that whilst being ill I have missed out on a couple of Christmas get togethers, one with friends from my DRC days and one was the works Christmas party. We did manage to make it to my brother's yesterday to see my nieces and nephew and my parents. We swapped presents and went out for lunch. Unfortunately Jase was unwell - he was actually sick on the tube on the way to Kings Cross. The Exorcist on the Northern line - not fun!

Of course cyber men will be all over London this Christmas and I just discovered the Dr Who Adventure Calendar on the BBC website - click on each day and you get more pics or a video clip.

This Friday was when the moon was closest to the earth and so the brightest it has been for 15 years. It was foggy in London so we didn't get to see it. But on Thursday night when I am guessing the moon was still pretty close and bright I actually woke up because the setting moon was casting a really strong silvery light into our hall way.

Chuckle Brothers

As this BBC news item shows the Chuckle Brothers were honored with a BAFTA for long service to entertainment today. I think a statue of the brothers should be erected pride of place outside the French Gate Centre in Doncaster. The Chuckle brothers are from Mexborough just outside Doncaster. One of my favourite Chuckle Brothers episodes featured them traveling in a space ship to an alien planet which resembled one of South Yorkshire's many quarries. One of the brothers wasn't too pleased to be on an alien planet being only "a lad from Mexborough."

Christmas is coming

Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat... Jason took the fantastic picture above of our Christmas tree this afternoon. Yes I know it is not even December yet but it is so dark and bleak outside at the moment, having Christmas come early helps cheer us up! We put the tree up this afternoon and there is a picture below of all of the tree. The tree is over dressed as ever, the colour scheme this year being silver, blue and purple. The LED lights are really cool we have them fading in and out slowly, but they do have a setting so they flash on and off like a disco if we fancy a Christmas boogie!
I almost bought a giant musical snow globe from Marks and Spencers but thought better of it in the end, I do have a singing Santa and Rudolph at work which I can bring home on Christmas Eve. Not long to go now!

Manchester

For the first time in over a year I am staying in Manchester. After visiting Manchester regularly for a number of years whilst working for the DRC I have only been back once in the last 15 months. I'm staying at a lovely hotel I'll post details when I get back. We had a gorgeous meal tonight at EastzEast restauran which I was first taken to when travelling around England with a bunch of stand up comedians performing on buses. Yes it was as surreal as it sounds. But I did get introduced to EastzEast on that tour. The food is always delicious and hearty while the service is attentive and charming. All women are given a single red rose on leaving. Cheesey maybe but very, very sweet.

London photos

Jase and I went to a rather freezing London this afternoon to take some photos along the Thames. All the pics below are Jason's. We walked along Queens Walk past City Hall and then along Shad Thames and back before crossing over Tower Bridge pictured below.
Jase got the picture of the stairs below but doesn't like the McD's cup in it but I think it adds something to the picture, like commenting on modern London and it's urban, global corporate litter ;-)
Below are two views of City Hall where I used to work.

By the time the sun was setting it had got too cold for me although Jase was just wearing a t-shirt and jacket and not feeling the cold at all. The German Christmas market was about 10 times busier than yesterday - it was heaving and bad tempered so we escaped to Clapham for tea.

Cologne Christmas Market

This afternoon Andrew, Carla and I went to the Cologne Christmas market on the Southbank. Carla and Andrew are pictured below. The German market promised ginger bread hearts, mulled wine, sausage and all manner of festive goodies to buy. It didn't disappoint - except for the gingerbread which was full of additives and preservatives and vacuum wrapped! I did get the most divine bath melts which are scented with orange and cinnamon, really Christmassy.

The solitary merry go round - which is a permanent fixture of the Southbank was made German by way of organ music and made festive as it was belting out popular carols and Christmas tunes.
There was also a "Slow food" market on the Waterloo side of the Southbank Centre - with lots of tasting opportunities and some lovely meat, cheese and bread on sale not to mention the hog roast and lamb burgers! The slow food thing is back on the weekend of the 19th December!

Weddings, Monkey and more

After a week of fairly prolific blogging (for me) at the beginning of November things have been busy and I have been bad at keeping my blog up to date. Last weekend we attended Nikki and Phil's wedding reception at The Carlton Mitre Hotel opposite Hampton Court. Jase and I loved the hotel so much we have booked to stay the day after Boxing Day! I can't wait. Check out the history of the hotel section of the website linked above - it's great especially the bit about the trench that was dug for all manner of filth to be flung in!

On the Sunday we went to see Monkey Journey to the West at the O2 which was amazing! Although the specially built theatre was a bit cheap and cheerful and the seats were small and tightly packed in. As we were on the front row and I am rather short it was hard to see all of the action on the stage sometimes but if we had sat further back then I would not have seen as much as the gradient of the seating wasn't very steep. So the seats were the best for me. There was some silly mix up with the wheelchair seating which was a shame to see happen but they seemed to sort it all out in the end.

The performance its self was spectacular the acrobatics and martial arts were cool, the music great and the costumes gorgeous. I would have liked to have seen more of Jamie Hewlett's animation which is great.
Otherwise this last week or so we have been playing a lot of golf on the Wii - I had the yips for a while with the old power shots but seem to have regained my technique :-)