Getting in the mood for Christmas

Cottage door in Headley

Well, as usual south-east England is doing a great job of disappointing me on the weather score.

Last week we had a few frosts and foolishly I started to imagine that winter had in fact arrived at long last. But here we are this week, back to temperatures in the mid teens - grey, muggy and annoying. Just damp enough to ruin your hair without being wet enough to warrant an umbrella.

So it is difficult to fire up enthusiasm for the approaching Yuletide festivities. Nonetheless I am giving it a good shot.

Window shopping in the laneways of Richmond

Our first Christmas activity was attending the Victorian Christmas Fair at one of my favourite Surrey attractions, the Watts Gallery and Artists' Village in Compton.

There was a variety of activities but mainly aimed at families and children, so we didn't linger for too long but it was our first opportunity to take a look at Limnerslease, the home of painter and sculptor G F Watts and his artist wife Mary Fraser-Tytler, which was only restored and opened to the public about a year ago.

The house is nestled in woodland - such a magical location - and is a tribute to the Arts & Crafts movement, to which the pair were great contributors. 

Sadly we just missed a reading by none other than the wonderful Penelope Keith, who is a lifelong Surrey resident and a great supporter of the Watts Gallery. We arrived just as she was saying her goodbyes to a group of people, but we were impressed by her youthfulness (she's 76 but looks like she's in her mid 60s at most) and her modest travel arrangements. No driver or fancy big car for her, not even a Range Rover which you might expect of somebody who resides on a spacious Surrey pile and who for many years was the star of To The Manor Born. 

No, she drove herself to the gig in her tiny little Kia Picanto, and offered one of the staff a lift back to the main gallery just down the road.

A Victorian-era Father Christmas entertains the children with stories

Penelope Keith's modest mode of transport

At work (where I continue to work 12-hour days, making life pretty ordinary, to say the least) I am already suffering through the rounds of Christmas lunches, Secret Santas and novelty Christmas jumper days. Bah, humbug!

Because I work for two separate teams this means double the misery.

Don't get me wrong, I actually love Christmas but I have always dreaded the office Christmas party where you're supposed to cosy up with people you wouldn't necessarily choose to spend time with unless somebody was paying you. 

Fortunately I like most of the people I'm currently enslaved with, but Secret Santa is awful and no amount of well-meant £5-and-under tokenism can change my mind on that. Lame gag gifts, horrid toiletries that are not cruelty-free... it saps my strength to smile through this 'team building' process. 

One of the bright spots in the calendar however has been the Christmas lunch with my former colleagues at the Australian Trade & Investment Commission. I took a day off work this past week to attend.

Groovy mid 20th century Scandi-style lighting at MIldred's in Soho

My group of former colleagues has an usually large proportion of vegetarians and vegans, so once again our lunch was held at a vegetarian restaurant - this time Mildred's in Soho, where my farewell was held in May. The lunch was a combination Christmas celebration and goodbye to my former boss and his wife, as their posting is now at an end after four years.

As usual we enjoyed excellent food, complemented very well by the several bottles of 1998 Wynn's Coonawarra 'Michael' Shiraz that David and Carolyn brought along. 

I think we all felt it was the end of an era; as a team we really like and respect each other enormously. Although I hated every minute of the commuting and didn't like the heavy finance focus of my role there, I truly miss the people and David is definitely my favourite boss of all time, not least because we share an obsessive interest in music. David's a few years older than me but essentially we hung out at the same kinds of gigs in the late 70s and early 80s - he in Canberra, me in Sydney. 

Many an animated conversation was had during my time in the office, remembering various obscure punk bands that nobody else had ever heard of, and weighing up the merits of the many and varied incarnations of Paul Weller and Bernard Sumner.

So lunch was a lot of fun, but quite sad too.

Prior to lunch I took the opportunity to wander around London to take a look at the Christmas decorations, down Regent Street and along Carnaby Street, exploring the surrounding laneways.

All you need is Love... on Carnaby Street

Robins, hearts & stars on Kingley Street

Modern Christmas elegance in Newburgh Street

Decorations in Kingley Court, just off Carnaby Street

A highlight was the glories of Anthropologie, a place that makes me want to race around the store shouting 'Beautiful things! Beautiful things!!!!' I spent a good 40 minutes ooh-ing and aah-ing over the quirky loveliness of this amazing store.

The fabulous planted wall that runs from basement to top-floor atrium
in Anthopologie's Regent Street store

Baaaaa!

So many beautiful things...

Kevin took the train into town after work and we met up in Bedlam, I mean Piccadilly Circus, to take a look at the lights along Regent and Oxford Streets. 

Many years ago I happened to be in London just before Christmas and I swore I'd never return to Oxford Street at that time of year. It's hellish enough during tourist season but the Christmas throng is enough to push you over the edge. I have absolutely no patience with people who stop in the middle of the pavement to take seventeen selfies, with no regard for the hundreds of people trying to make their way along the street.

Still, London has really made an effort this year with the lights.

Angels on Regent Street

Braving the Christmas shopping hordes at Piccadilly Circus

An error of judgement on my part saw us waste about an hour trudging around Hyde Park at the gigantic cess-pool of fairground cheapness known as 'Winter Wonderland'.

Winter it was definitely not, at 14ºC. Nor was it what I'd call a wonderland, unless you were looking for a wonderland of crap. Eat your heart out, Blackpool - you've been well and truly trumped by this world-class collection of tat.

I had read a description that there were markets, ice skating and a big ferris wheel, all of which appealed to me. After queuing for about 15 minutes just to get through a bag-check process, we searched in vain for stalls with anything worth looking at. I couldn't face the prospect of a lengthy queue for the ferris wheel and the ice skating sessions were booked out. Horrible junk food only was on offer, so we high-tailed it out of there. Oh well - we know for next year not to bother! 

The sadly misnamed 'Winter Wonderland' in Hyde Park

A bit closer to home, we spent Saturday in Richmond. 


We try to get to Richmond Park a few times a year. It's only about a 30-minute drive from Epsom and aside from being a beautiful expanse of ancient woodland with incredible views over London, naturally we are drawn by the delights of the deer population. Hundreds of them roam free, as they have done since the mid 1600s.

This majestic fellow was taking it easy

Breaking in the new snow boots, for our trip to far north Norway at Christmas

This is the biggest of the Royal Parks in the capital, and the largest enclosed space in London. It's so big that, unusually for London, you actually feel like you're getting away from people. 

It's so easy to imagine King Henry VIII hunting through the park's woods. A large part of that is the trees - the knowledge that some of them are nearly 800 years old and were standing during the time of his reign... it's just incredible.

Look at the size of this tree!

And so after an hour or so of strolling the park we stopped at a nearby pub for lunch. 

One of the most enjoyable things about living in England is the opportunity to try so many different eating and drinking establishments. There is an endless supply of them and although we have developed a few favourites in our local area we're always keen to sample new environments.

Our lunch venue

The funky interior of The Black Horse

... and finally we rounded out the day by wandering around the streets of Richmond itself. We eagerly sampled the vegan brownies, the Belgian waffles and the coffee on sale at a market, and no trip to Richmond would be complete for me without popping in to the India Jane store.

Baubles galore in the fabulous India Jane store

This pottery studio faces directly out onto the Thames

Christmas lights in Richmond laneway

Some of you will recall last year's Christmas debacle - after flying to Helsinki and spending a lovely few days with friends I was too sick to travel on to Norway as planned, and we spent a miserable, grey, warm and lonely Christmas here in Epsom. 

This year we'll be in Arctic Norway with family - my first trip up to Finnmark, Norway's northernmost county and my father's birthplace, in more than 20 years.

It should be a really special experience. Up there the sun dipped below the horizon on 27 November and will not rise above it again until the middle of January. This period is known as the mørketiden - the dark time - and it's a socially vibrant period of the year when people go to great lengths to get through the challenges of perpetual night.

Could we be lucky enough to see the Aurora Borealis? Who knows. We're not counting on it - we'll consider it an amazing bonus if it happens. At the very least we'll enjoy spending time with my Aunt Rigmor, cousin Marion and her husband Erik and adult sons Jo Eirik and Jørn Henrik. 

The Northern Lights above the Varanger peninsula, where we'll be at Christmas
[Image courtesy of http://www.finnmarksbilder.no/aurora-borealis.html]

Stay tuned for news of our adventures in the frozen north.

Until next time,
- Maree  xo