As always December was a busy time with plenty of people to see and things to do. We decided that we needed to do some exploring around the East End which we had decided to call home. Apparently the East End is well known for its markets so what with Christmas coming we thought we would see on offer. We went for a wander down to the canal and headed east until along it until we reached Broadway Market, at the foot of London Fields. It was full of trendy young people hanging out, checking out the stalls and sampling the many food stalls which were spread up and down the street. We felt like a drink, but as happens in London on the weekend the pubs were packed so no chance of that. We had to settle for a warm mulled wine from one of the stall holders set up around the corner in the school yard. We checked out London Fields, which were your standard London green space. Bit chilly for a picnic though. We wandered back through the market and picked up some big tasty looking veges before wandering back to the apartment. There is a roof terrace on top of the building so we tried our luck at getting up there. Alas, the doors were locked so the best we could hope for was to stare through the windows.
London is full of museums to all sorts of things. Down the road was one of the more obscure ones, the Geffrye Museum of Interior Design. Marcus passed it every day on the bus to work. It wasn't really something we would normally check out but they had a special exhibition on of Christmas through the ages. There were basically about 7-8 rooms showing what a typical family living room would look like at Christmas. It was actually pretty cool and gave quite a good insight into what life would have been like for people over the past several hundred years. There was also a funky shop in the museum where we picked up a Battersea Power Station Bookend for Marcus (he had wanted a Battersea Power Station souvenir for ages but had never found the right one. We also got a surprise in the basement of the museum. There was a small drawing exhibition, done by a local artist, all about the construction of Dalston Square, the place we were now living in. It was cool to have that personal connection with it. Outside the museum, formerly almshouses (retirement home) was a great big Christmas tree and tiny little men who someone had placed around the grounds. They had little signs asking to be returned home but we decided to leave that adventure for someone else.
One of the cool things about London is you get little ghettos of different ethnic communities around the place. Hoxton is just down the road and it is chocka full of Vietnamese restaurants. We hadn't had much Vietnamese before so thought we would give it a try. After a tasty meal of fresh spring rolls, crab and curry we were pretty happy and keen to try it again.
Somehow we had managed to spend our whole time in London without visiting one of the major tourist attractions, Westminster Abbey. So we decided to make amends by queuing up with the American tourists to check it out. It is a Gothic cathedral so, unlike St Paul's which is quite light and airy it is quite dark inside with lots of stone and wood. It is also hard to get a feel for the Westminster Abbey you see in the Royal weddings on TV because you enter through the side door and there is a big artificial wall dividing it all up. We wandered around checking out the final resting place of many famous people such Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots and Rudyard Kipling. By this time we had seen a lot of churches but this one still ranked as one of the most impressive, if just by famous bodies buried under it alone.
Another East End market that we wanted to check out was the Columbia Road Flower Market. It was just a short stroll down the road and we found it without too much of a problem. First things first we headed to the money machine which gave us the option of English or Cockney...so after a bit longer than usual we walked away flushed with Sausage and Mash and wandered through the narrow lanes into the market. It is pretty small, stretching down Columbia Road and into some of the side streets, but is packed with people buying their flowers and plants and young people hanging out in the cool pubs, cafes and shops along the road. We wandered through the crowd listening to calls of "Two for a Tenner!" "Lovely bunches!" "Beautiful Darlin!" checking out the bright bunches of flowers everywhere but we had our eyes set on something else today. We were after a big green bushy Christmas Tree. There were plenty to choose from but they were going just as quick as the vendors could put them out. Fortunately we were quick off the mark and managed to pick ourselves up one that looked pretty good. Marcus hoisted it on to his shoulder and we managed to get halfway home before needing to jump onto the bus....We got it safely back to the apartment and then Jess added the decorations and we couldn't help feeling more festive as a result.
It wasn't just new markets which we checked out. Camden was always a great place to go for Christmas shopping and just 10 minutes away on the Overground it was easy to get there (and much more interesting than the massive Westfield Stratford in the other direction.) It's also a great place for street food. Mmmm, tasty curries. We also made a trip to Ridley Road market in Dalston. It's straight out of Eastenders but more a source of day to day wares than special things for Christmas.
Another English tradition which we had yet to experience was the Christmas Pantomime. There were plenty on around the place so we got ourselves some tickets to see Cinderella at the Hackney Empire one night after work. We weren't quite sure what to expect but were actually quick surprised at the enjoyable singing, dancing, cross dressing, audience interaction and general silliness. They had us shouting "Look Behind You!" and "Oh No He Won't!" along with the rest of the crowd. Although many of the adults seemed to be enjoying it all a bit more than the kids. We played along but spent most the time feeling a little bewildered by the whole thing. Must be a cultural thing.
As Christmas grew ever closer it was time for each of us to go to our work Christmas parties. Jess unfortunately got stuck with the traditional work lunch fare of cold stodgy roast in a lifeless chain hotel dining room. Marcus was a bit luckier this year. His work had decided to go for something different. A bus ride down to Richmond and Chinese food for Christmas lunch. Couldn't help thinking of the movie "A Christmas Story". It was very good Chinese though. That was a little bit different but then it reach a whole new level when an Indian guy dressed as Elvis turned up halfway through the main course and started belting out Elvis' classics. Not sure if it was the combination of the surreal Chinese Christmas but everyone was loving Indian Elvis and wouldn't let him leave. He ran out of Elvis songs to sing but luckily knew a bit of Cliff Richard and even some Queen too. (It is possible that all this enthusiasm from everyone was also the result of the free flowing wine too...) Marcus was also pleased with his Secret Santa gift of a big beard to replace the one he had recently had to let go.
Christmas time was a perfect opportunity for the Dalston Square community to get together again. The residents association had arranged an evening get together. Bring a Plate. Being Kiwis we liked that way of doing things. So armed with homemade gingerbread men we made our way across the square and up into another building in search of the festivities. Turns out there was a great big deck, perfect for get togethers filled with random people, some of whom we had met before but many of whom we had not. It was pretty darn cold out there, but we met a bunch of new people who shared the same area with us and shared in their food as they shared in ours. In such a big place as London it is great to find some community.
It was nice to have Christmas Eve on a Saturday so we used the opportunity to to catch up with Anna and Perry at the Cole Hole in Covent Garden, a good old fashioned pub with some tasty ales and roasts on offer. We enjoyed a Christmas themed ale or four...and some good conversation and Company before letting Anna and Perry be on their way before the London public transport ground to a halt.
Aimee had gone home to Jersey for Christmas so we were able to get up in our PJs and have our annual Mum and Dad Skype chats. We didn't overdo it for breakfast. There was plenty of time to do that the rest of the day. Instead we packed ourselves up with food and drink and walked down to Tree's place. No public transport to get us there today, but still only a 45 minute walk. This year we were celebrating with Tree and Ash in a Christmas Feast Extravaganza. Tree had already been slaving away all morning by the time we got there, but we all pitched in to deliver one of the tastiest meals of roast lamb, veges, potatoes, brussel sprouts and stuffing that we had ever had. Mouth still waters thinking about it. With no driving the wine was flowing pretty freely too. After breaking to adjust our belts another round of tasty pav roll (a la Jess) ice-cream and fruit was not needed but still enjoyable. As is traditional we weren't really in much of a position to move by this point so retired to the lounge for something Tree had been wanting to share for a while. The Room. It is a movie, but more than just a movie...it is probably the worst movie you will ever see...and yet enjoyable for that very same reason..."Oh Hi Guys" Anyone fancy a game of football in the alley while wearing tuxedos? This all finished up in time for us to be joined by the the rest of the London crew who were finishing up at their various own Christmas lunches (which clearly were not as good as ours was...) General merriment and Never Mind the Buzzcocks the board game (which was ridiculously difficult and unsurprisingly lacked the wit of the TV show) ensued, before eventually all that eating and drinking took its toll and we decided to head home for some Christmas sleep.
The transport was back again on Boxing Day, so we made our way a bit further (but not much further) afield to Ian and Amy's (along with the rest of the London crew) for a relaxing afternoon of snack eating and movie watching. There was fun with Rio, fear with The Shining and silliness with Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. It was the perfect way to spend a lazy Boxing Day with friends.
Jess decided to go into work over the Christmas break for a couple of days so Marcus just chilled out a bit at home and caught up on some sleep. We hadn't really been anywhere since getting back from our van trip so we had arranged a trip to the southernmost part of England, where people talk like Pirates. Yaaaargh! Cornwall. We tripped across to Paddington Station (no direct route alas) before jumping on a train for the 6 hour journey down to Penzance. It was a grey day that greeted us as we reached Penzance. We loaded our bags into the rental car and then went for a walk around the town. The main road wasn't much to talk about, with a few more Pound Shops than we were keen to visit. We wandered along some of the side streets till we found the Morrab Gardens, a nice place to wander. It wasn't in full bloom, being the middle of winter but still very pleasant. We followed the hill down until we reached the waterfront and then wandered around trying to catch glimpses of St Michael's Mount (the cousin of Mont St Michel) but alas the cloud was too low so our glimpses were only fleeting. After all that working we had worked up an appetite and we managed to find a place to stop for a tasty Cornish Pasty, in Cornwall...We stopped in at the supermarket and picked up our Cornish Ale and Cornish clotted cream ice-cream. Sufficiently stocked we made our way back to the car and with the help of Tom-Tom journeyed out into the country lanes of Cornwall. They got progressively narrower until we had large mounds of grass on either side and no room to escape if we came across another car coming the other way. Fortunately we found our way to our pretty stone cottage without incident. It was part of an old farm with a big stone house on the other side of the courtyard (which we accidentally drove into at first...) We parked the car, got the key from our hosts and went to explore. It was getting dark so we were pleased to get there before it was so dark that we couldn't see the way...No street lights around these parts. The cottage was lovely, with stone walls snuggly couches and a big roaring fire place with plenty of wood to keep us warm.
The weather was still a bit dodgy as we awoke on New Years Eve with fog, rain and patches of sun all rolled in. We weren't down in Cornwall to stay inside though, so we jumped in the car and off we went. We weren't as lucky as the day before, when we met someone coming the other way along the narrow lane, so had to reverse backwards up the hill till we could find some space. To give you an idea of how narrow the road was, the someone that we met was a lady pushing a pram...We headed out towards the south coast to see what was to be seen. First stop was the Minack Theatre. An amazing open air theatre built into the cliff overlooking the sea. It had been a labour of love for its creator Rowena Cade. The exhibition about her and her life building the theatre was very interesting. There was no play on so we could scamper around the seats and the stage with the crashing waves many feet below. We made our way down the path behind the theatre to the yellow sanded beach below. Bit cold for us to swim. Marcus thought he saw a dog coming out of the water but Jess knew better, it was seal coming up for a bit of a rest from the raging sea. After walking back up the hill to the car we carried on around the coast (having to make our way slowly as we got caught in the middle of a fox hunt we think) our next stop was the famous English landmark of Lands End. We didn't really know what to expect other than it being the westernmost point in England. When we arrived there were two words to describe it..Tourist Trap...The place was crawling with tourist shops and even had theme park rides. We found the famous Lands End sign (which you couldn't stand next to without paying) and then were quickly on our way again. We headed north in hunt of some more Cornish history, a tin mine. Much of the old Cornish economy had been built on the back of the now defunct tin mines. We drove following the signs until we arrived at the Levant Mine on the coast. It was closed but you could still wander around the chimneys and ruined buildings and take in the rugged countryside. The fog and the rain were starting to come in so we cancelled our plans to go stone circle hunting (didn't want to get lost) and made our way back to the cottage to warm up again and change our clothes. The weather had settled well in by now steady rain coming down, but we had reservations in St Ives for dinner. St Ives was famous at New Years for dressing up, so we recycled our cowboy and saloon girl costumes, found a park up above the town wandered our way down through the narrow cobbled lanes, doing a couple of laps of the town centre before finding our fish restaurant (couldn't pass up fresh fish) for dinner. The place was packed and we were out of there pretty early and after a couple more laps around the town we decided it was too cold and too wet to wandering around in fancy dress. Instead we jumped back n the car and drove back through the fog to the cottage where we sat in front of the fire and watched the London fireworks on TV. Yes we are lame, but at least we were warm and dry.
https://picasaweb.google.com/JessicaLMcMillan/December2011
London is full of museums to all sorts of things. Down the road was one of the more obscure ones, the Geffrye Museum of Interior Design. Marcus passed it every day on the bus to work. It wasn't really something we would normally check out but they had a special exhibition on of Christmas through the ages. There were basically about 7-8 rooms showing what a typical family living room would look like at Christmas. It was actually pretty cool and gave quite a good insight into what life would have been like for people over the past several hundred years. There was also a funky shop in the museum where we picked up a Battersea Power Station Bookend for Marcus (he had wanted a Battersea Power Station souvenir for ages but had never found the right one. We also got a surprise in the basement of the museum. There was a small drawing exhibition, done by a local artist, all about the construction of Dalston Square, the place we were now living in. It was cool to have that personal connection with it. Outside the museum, formerly almshouses (retirement home) was a great big Christmas tree and tiny little men who someone had placed around the grounds. They had little signs asking to be returned home but we decided to leave that adventure for someone else.One of the cool things about London is you get little ghettos of different ethnic communities around the place. Hoxton is just down the road and it is chocka full of Vietnamese restaurants. We hadn't had much Vietnamese before so thought we would give it a try. After a tasty meal of fresh spring rolls, crab and curry we were pretty happy and keen to try it again.
Another East End market that we wanted to check out was the Columbia Road Flower Market. It was just a short stroll down the road and we found it without too much of a problem. First things first we headed to the money machine which gave us the option of English or Cockney...so after a bit longer than usual we walked away flushed with Sausage and Mash and wandered through the narrow lanes into the market. It is pretty small, stretching down Columbia Road and into some of the side streets, but is packed with people buying their flowers and plants and young people hanging out in the cool pubs, cafes and shops along the road. We wandered through the crowd listening to calls of "Two for a Tenner!" "Lovely bunches!" "Beautiful Darlin!" checking out the bright bunches of flowers everywhere but we had our eyes set on something else today. We were after a big green bushy Christmas Tree. There were plenty to choose from but they were going just as quick as the vendors could put them out. Fortunately we were quick off the mark and managed to pick ourselves up one that looked pretty good. Marcus hoisted it on to his shoulder and we managed to get halfway home before needing to jump onto the bus....We got it safely back to the apartment and then Jess added the decorations and we couldn't help feeling more festive as a result.It wasn't just new markets which we checked out. Camden was always a great place to go for Christmas shopping and just 10 minutes away on the Overground it was easy to get there (and much more interesting than the massive Westfield Stratford in the other direction.) It's also a great place for street food. Mmmm, tasty curries. We also made a trip to Ridley Road market in Dalston. It's straight out of Eastenders but more a source of day to day wares than special things for Christmas.
As Christmas grew ever closer it was time for each of us to go to our work Christmas parties. Jess unfortunately got stuck with the traditional work lunch fare of cold stodgy roast in a lifeless chain hotel dining room. Marcus was a bit luckier this year. His work had decided to go for something different. A bus ride down to Richmond and Chinese food for Christmas lunch. Couldn't help thinking of the movie "A Christmas Story". It was very good Chinese though. That was a little bit different but then it reach a whole new level when an Indian guy dressed as Elvis turned up halfway through the main course and started belting out Elvis' classics. Not sure if it was the combination of the surreal Chinese Christmas but everyone was loving Indian Elvis and wouldn't let him leave. He ran out of Elvis songs to sing but luckily knew a bit of Cliff Richard and even some Queen too. (It is possible that all this enthusiasm from everyone was also the result of the free flowing wine too...) Marcus was also pleased with his Secret Santa gift of a big beard to replace the one he had recently had to let go.
Christmas time was a perfect opportunity for the Dalston Square community to get together again. The residents association had arranged an evening get together. Bring a Plate. Being Kiwis we liked that way of doing things. So armed with homemade gingerbread men we made our way across the square and up into another building in search of the festivities. Turns out there was a great big deck, perfect for get togethers filled with random people, some of whom we had met before but many of whom we had not. It was pretty darn cold out there, but we met a bunch of new people who shared the same area with us and shared in their food as they shared in ours. In such a big place as London it is great to find some community.
It was nice to have Christmas Eve on a Saturday so we used the opportunity to to catch up with Anna and Perry at the Cole Hole in Covent Garden, a good old fashioned pub with some tasty ales and roasts on offer. We enjoyed a Christmas themed ale or four...and some good conversation and Company before letting Anna and Perry be on their way before the London public transport ground to a halt.
The transport was back again on Boxing Day, so we made our way a bit further (but not much further) afield to Ian and Amy's (along with the rest of the London crew) for a relaxing afternoon of snack eating and movie watching. There was fun with Rio, fear with The Shining and silliness with Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. It was the perfect way to spend a lazy Boxing Day with friends.
https://picasaweb.google.com/JessicaLMcMillan/December2011
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