Christmas Jolly

The Luyten/Foster Family

Champagne Christmas Breakfast

Bella bubby guarding the Xmas pressies & looking spiffy too

My nephew Oliver

My other Nephew Eli

My Nana & Aunt Anne

Hubby with Oliver

Christmas Lights of London 2009

John Lewis, Oxford Street
Debenhams, Oxford Street

More Debenhams, Oxford Street
Selfridges, Oxford Street (near Bond Street)
Harrods, Knightsbridge

Covent Garden Apple Markets
Carnaby Street, tucked in Regent and Oxford Streets

Merry Christmas London Style

Well what has now been and gone is our last (and first) Christmas in London, a quiet little dinner for two with a goose for 7. Whew, she was a big bird, and probably much offended that I kept calling her a turkey. In the end I banned the use of the Turkey Xmas hat, to cease my trigger to say the T-U-R-K-E-Y word...

It was delicious and needy, requiring much de-oiling during the cooking, thus whilst most of the afternoon I sat watching children's cartoon movies. Though The Incredibles is the only one I made it all the way through. Poor Mark was up and down like a yo yo to the Goose getting her all good to go for dinner.

We ate eventually at about 5.30pm, and it was definitely worth the wait, all the trimmings, potato's, sweet potato, carrots, beans, broccoli, parsnips, Yorkshire puddings, full cranberry and apple stuffing with delicious goose fat and red onion gravy...mmmm; your mouth watering yet, mine is and its 10pm at night and I have just had peppermint tea, which does not go with any of the above!

Below are a couple of photos from our Xmas day;

Festive Flat
Breakfast - eggs, salmon, Irish potato bread with Champers

Champagne...yummy!
Chef carving the goose
Dinner - Goose was good!
Our presents
Merry Christmas from me

And Merry Christmas from the Tourists on the Weekend xx

Oh Christmas Tree

Our tree
It's not much but its so festive over here we just felt a tree was the order of the day, since these photos have been taken, we have a couple of more Xmas cards, a Poinsetta our Xmas friends (the turkey and reindeer hats) on display and a bowl of clementines under the tree.
Just a few decorations
A close up
Next year....the real deal

Xmas Shenanigans and a bar called the Walkabout

Our Team at Xmas party, dinner at Smolensky's on the Strand
Me later at the Walkabout
Amy, Brien, Rachael and I at the Walkabout in silly mode

Christmas Lights of London

So far this year I have been most disapointed with the Christmas lights, both Debenhams and John Lewis, oh and House of Fraser too actually, all have the same Christmas lights as last year. Not so sure about Selfridges I haven't been up that far yet, and I do try to avoid it...as its hard not to shop in there, so many lovely things...but i do have to buy some pressies so i might get there at some stage.

Then the street lights, well pretty boring I must say. The lights at the intersection are nice enough, as you can see below,

Oxford Street at 7am...not even all of them actually work though

But the ones on Regent Street are just giant light nets that are meant to be, I think stars. They don't flicker or do anything, its all one colour, white; frankly quite boring.

Oxford Street East one evening last week

Oxford Street again

Anyway you might like them, Adelaide certainly doesn't have them. Though that is merely because its light till 9pm what would be the point! Here its dark at 4pm, so its nice to have a bit of uplifting Christmassy lights to make it feel a bit well not dark.

So I am on the hunt to get some nice Christmas street lights. But for the sake of my last Christmas here, i will take pictures of all the department store frontages and put them up here, stay tunned.

Where in the world am i?

Well, its cold, its in Eastern Europe, its Xmas time, its the Romantic city of the East - where am I, in Prague....stay tuned for more...

Prague....Christmas Day forecast....

.....is for SNOW! Yippee

MOJ Christmas Lunch

At my work, which is the very large Ministry of Justice (where I work for the HMCS (Her Majestys Court Service) Change Management Access to Justice Finance Team....whew, what a mouthful, we have a very small team of just 8 people.

Four of us are Australian (one each from Canberra, Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide)...hmmmm, do I detect a trend...hummm, consider my previous jobs...consider if all the Aussies, Saffa's and Kiwi's left the UK tomorrow, there would be a lot of businesses going well belly up! There would be no one left the run the show!

Anyways...so our small team of country running peoples, had a Xmas Lunch at Zizzi's (I had pizza) and exhanged a few goodies for a Kris Kringle. It was short lived and back to work we had to go after a timed, the restaurant had us all scheduled in for 1 hour and a 1/2 only, dining slot.

My Pizza....yummy!

Amanda and Amy

Matt, my Boss (note the Essenden Supporters jumper)

Rachael (formerly was Pam who has now gone back to Melbourne), Syed, Brien & Lucy

Quote me...

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."
Dr. Seuss

A lovely Xmas - 2007 Worthing by Sea

After a chilled out weekend in London, trying to nurture a cold that hit me like a tonne of bricks on the Friday morning; I packed bag, then headed to Victoria Station to farewell London for 5 whole days for a small family Xmas in Worthing by Sea with Anne.

On arrival my first request was for a visit for a walk on the beach, which is quite literally 3 minutes from Anne's flat and you can see her flat from the beach too. So after a quick dash to the shops to ensure plenty of champers was on hand, we went to the beach. It was quite dark, ominous, windy & bloody cold; but that is what I wanted to see and couldn't feel at thing in my lovely warm coat with scarf and gloves!

Annes lounge room decked out for Xmas

That night was spent watching TV, yeah! Lack of TV at home has clearly seen me become a bit too excited when there is one, hell I have found just watching the news and weather intriguing - what a sad sod I have become! Though news and current affairs was something that was lacking in my life - its amazing that the world does go on even when you don't know about it. Oh and Anne has introduced me to the joys of Eastenders and I am thinking that this could be a bad thing, as clearly my brain has suffered enough damage this year already. I also got a chance to call some lovely people at home in Australia, you know who you all are, so Mwahhh - big kisses.

Our Xmas tree

Xmas morning Anne and I were up nice and early to ring home to speak with Mum and Nana, so we both got to talk to our Mum's for Xmas day. Breakfast, brunch was celebrated with Ruth and Kennan, who popped in to share some pastries, scrambled eggs (a la Lisa - yes I can cook, I just don't cook, there is a difference!!) and smoked salmon - with champagne of course. Anne got me a CD and a perfume that I have wanted for ages, while I got her some Molten Brown (bath products) and a Tiffany keyring.

Lisa & Anne after opening our pressies!

Anne with Kennan & Ruth

Kennan & Ruth

Later that day around 4pm, after much tv watching, texting, reading and generally doing Xmas day nothings....which included watching Finding Nemo, we had a lovely Xmas dinner of roast lamb, vegetables, all the trimmings, plus more champagne. Xmas pudding, was later...though given size of stomach at that point...I should never have even attempted pudding. Nor the super filling Winter Pimms that we had, either (Winter Pimms is served hot with Apple juice along with apples and oranges). Stuffed.... then sleeping.

The itty bitty xmas tree

Boxing day was sleep in day, with tea/toast (vegemite....yummmm) for breaky, then another beautiful walk along the beach because the sun was out and despite the slight chill it was absolutely gorgeous outside. We followed this with a visit to Alison and Dan's to thank them for all Anne's presents (Alison is super generous) and for a cuppa. Anne and I had by then decided that we'd go to the movies and we saw St Trinians. Now it was quite funny (but wait till DVD)and it had lovely Colin Firth in it, so I had to see it, that and that was all the Worthing theatre was showing.

Worthing beach

Anne had to go to work on Thursday and Friday, so they were very much Lisa "free" days. Though I promised Anne that I would cook for her as a gift for letting me abduct her futon, television and lounge room for a couple of extra days.

Anne's Xmas boots that I absconded with for the week.. so warm.

On Thursday I went for a lovely long walk along the beach and also sat on the beach for a bit to watch the ocean, which is just so relaxing. Though my bottom was numb with cold after getting up to go home. What did I ponder? Lots and nothing - but who knows? But I have decided that I really love the beach where it be sunshine, grey, cold, hot, winter or summer - it is no matter to me.

Anne & Lisa on Worthing by Sea beach

I plodded off to the shops before Anne came home and ended up making a lovely pancetta and mozzarella salad with tomato & red pepper salsa, we had this with some cous cous and champagne!!! Plus dessert was Brambly apple pie...mmmmmm. Thursdays movies were The Queen and Breakfast at Tiffany's, because I just love Audrey Hepburn and now own the complete box set - yipppee, I can watch her anytime now!

Lisa's cooking goodies..

Friday I slept late and I think the long walk had exacerbated my cold as I was feeling worse than ever. So I decided to stay in and had a DVD day, which consisted of The Devil wears Prada, Bridget Jones Diary and Anne and I both watch Little Miss Sunshine. Dinner was pasta with a hallomi cheese salad - again a la Lisa!!

Alas Saturday I was heading back to London and I got a good send off, as Anne and I headed for a brunch fry up at a cute little greasy spoon cafe, just neatly tucked off the beach in Goring by Sea. The sunshine was brilliant, my sunglasses were just struggling with the light. Though when we tried to go for a beach walk the wintry wind was bitterly cold and we both could only endure a short walk before we had to get back out of the cold.

Goring by Sea

and more of Goring by Sea

I did have a lovely relaxed Christmas and I am lucky that I have family to spend it with... now back to reality, where was my list of New Years resolutions - I promise 2008 is going to be amazing ... I cannot wait!