The Lights of London

Due to prohibitively priced flights and prohibitively short school holidays, we have settled into the routine of spending Christmas in London.  At first it was very difficult to be away from our family during such a family-focused time, but now that we have our own family and we're used to it, being in London for Christmas is something we look forward to.  

Of course, we never plan to actually stay in London.  We always start the holiday planning off by talking about where we want to go.  I usually long for someplace warm and sunny. Jim and the girls always want to go someplace snowy and Christmas-like.  Austria usually is discussed. As is Amsterdam (more for the Christmas-like than the snow).  I secretly research 'beachy' European destinations, which are all far too cold at this time of year.  Then we talk some more about where we want to go, weighing the options, looking half-heartedly on Airbnb for affordable places to stay. And at some point we just stop talking about it and resign ourselves to staying here, never regretting the decision.

This year, like always, we decided to haul ourselves off the couch, stop eating cheese for a little while, and go into Central London to see the Christmas Lights.  We started by eating some more:

Then, after eating far too much, we headed down to the epicentre of last minute Christmas shopping: Oxford Street.

 And to the epicentre of the epicentre: Selfridges.

While we visit Selfridge's every year, thanks to its fantastic (and sometimes creepy) window displays and general festive air, I would like to point out that we have never actually purchased anything there (with the exception of food...do you see a theme?).  We are way too cheap to shop at Selfridge's, but we love to go in and wander around and look at the designer clothes and shoes and ridiculously over the top toys. Plus they usually have people singing and disco balls hanging from the ceiling and it's kind of a walk down memory lane because we used to go to Selfridge's to see Santa when the girls were little.  Unfortunately,  Santa's grotto got turned into a Cinema, so now we can only dream of Santa in Selfridge's.

In we went, stopping first in the makeup department, where we dipped our eager fingers into every single brightly coloured or spangly makeup sample at the NARS table.  The tired-looking, young makeup people working the counter were busy putting makeup on people who actually were going to buy something, so we took liberties without interference. (Thanks to the fact that Jim and I have outrageous American accents, we get away with being tourists very easily.  We are invisible to the haughty salespeople, who look down their noses at us with disdain.  It's great being classless, touristy Americans who let their children play with high end makeup!) 

From the makeup section, we moved on to the toys, bypassing Men's Fashion ('too boring' and 'Oh please, as if you would wear any of that stuff' were a couple of comments as Jim gazed longingly in that direction). Unfortunately, Selfridge's had the EXACT GIANT UNICORN that M had written to Santa about.  We were sweating in our boots because, although it was giant and cuddly, at £100 Santa wasn't planning to deliver. 

Fortunately, it was just at this point that the girls in sequins and solid gold roller skates rolled by, distracting everyone from overpriced unicorns and other giant temptations.  

I would just like Selfridge's to know that if they ever need any slightly older people to roller skate around their store, I'm happy to oblige. I love wearing sequins, will happily put glitter all over my face and can ever roller skate!

After ogling the pretty girls on roller skates (and expressing envy at their sequin bodysuits), we moved on to ogling shoes.  While the girls' enthusiasm for all things glittery and ridiculously expensive wasn't waning, Jim's was, so after each deciding which pair of £400 shoes we would like to have purchased, we all headed back out to the streets to finish looking at the lights.

Carnaby Street had ice block looking lights:

It was too early in Soho to see anything REALLY interesting (like young, muscly men in their underwear dancing in windows of clubs...always a highlight for me!), but they were projecting a nice message of peace and love and acceptance through their lights display:

And, thankfully, Regent's Street wasn't using its lights display as a way to advertise for Disney this year and had some really beautiful Angel Wing lights draped above the Christmas crowds.  Elsewhere there were peacock feather lights and, down the little alleys of Soho, stars and twinkling fairy lights were strung over couples drinking wine.  It was all very magical, really, and a fun evening out enjoying time together in this fabulous city.

The End!

A Revival? We'll see.

About once a year I decide that I'm going to attempt to revive this blog, which I lost track of once life got busy with kids and work. When I made it a priority, writing the blog was something that I always enjoyed and looked forward to and also a nice way to keep track of the exciting things that were happening in our lives here in London.  And so much has happened! 

These days, I use my Facebook account as a way to remember what we have done. It has captured snippets of life across years: pictures, comments, expressions of frustrations and humor.  I've documented travels and reunions with family, relationships with new friends and old.  But it's not the same as my old blog.  So, again, I'll try.

I'm about to turn 40, which is a milestone!  I don't feel anxious or middle aged. I don't feel like I've wasted precious time or that this is the beginning of the end. I'm constantly amazed at how much we have done and how unpredictable my life has been. I'm lucky to have spent more than half of my life with someone I love--someone I met when I was teenager growing up on a farm in Louisiana, in a time a time of my life when the biggest adventure I had to look forward to was finishing high school and going to college. I'm proud to have two amazing, strong and confident girls, to have created a life and a family in a city that is international and exciting, despite that fact that it's so far away from so many people we love. I'm lucky to have parents and siblings and in-laws back in the States who love us and support our choice to live here, but still wish we would come home.  I'm fortunate to have incredible friends all over world, who have acted as surrogate family when family has been too far away and who have become our 'international community.'  And I'm proud not to have lost my sense of humor along the way.

 Turning forty is good!  And turning forty requires extreme celebrating. So we decided to start with a family weekend away in Suffolk.

Something that has happened since the last time I was serious about this blog is the Air BnB phenomenon of renting out a room or a spare house or a caravan or a tent or a couch online.  We're jumping on the bandwagon late in the game and have hit the jackpot with a two bedroom converted barn on a farm, with horses and chickens and access to beautiful walks in the countryside across the street.

And, anyway, how can you not love someplace that has a sign like this,

with apple trees and magical bridges across their ditches,

 and a pond with stone creatures in it?

 It's like being in a country wonderland. I'm surprised this horse (Maddy) didn't start talking to us!

 Down the road a few feet, was an entrance to a Circular Walk, which started in a field (luckily nice and dry).  The city girls donned their finest crazy, clashing outfits and their rarely worn hiking boots and trekked across the crunchy clots of dirt, swatting at invisible bugs and collecting rocks.

 The handsome honey and dog, looking similarly stylish, kept the pace.

We were on the lookout for green woodpeckers, but only saw a Kestrel, lots of Starlings and a number of frantic Pheasants (one of which nearly gave us a heart attack when it came crashing out of the hedgerow). 

A small wood held more magical bridges and streams, before which to take a haggard picture.

 

There were ample opportunities for sister loveliness and for a game of 'We're going on a Bear Hunt.'  There were also a lot of cow pats to be assessed and stepped in. Fortunately, the canine member of the family showed no interest in rolling in cow pats, so that potential crisis was averted!

 

Love was in the air!

 
Food at the local family run pub was yummy (and Aggy got a few nibbles), but we had to sit outside, which was a little cold. 

 And on the way home, everyone showed off their best stile crossing moves:


We couldn't get enough of crossing fields...

And by the end, we all needed a little rest (some of us needed a nap!)

But there's always time and energy for a friendly horse who has a mustache!

 

January at the ballet

I grew up going to the ballet with my mom and, most specially, every Christmas with my grandparents.  My grandmother, Virginia, was sometimes the backstage doctor for the Cleveland Ballet and we were lucky enough to go to their performance of the Nutcracker every year.  It was magical and something that we--the kids-- looked forward to every year (in addition to our annual 'all you can eat at Dunkin' Donuts' outing with VA which ended abruptly one year after we ate all we could eat and then, having contracted the flu, barfed it up all over their house.  We were off donuts for a lot of years after that).

Evie has been taking ballet since she was two and a half and, but it wasn't until this year that we thought she was finally old enough to sit through a real ballet and enjoy it.  So, with great excitement, we made plans for Millie to stay with a friend and Jim and I took Evie into Central London to see the Royal Ballet's Alice in Wonderland.

 Covent Garden is full of historic places. Here we are, outside a really old and low ceilinged pub, messing up the picture the ladies behind us are trying to take.

 And on a side road in the rain.

 Evie had never been to the Royal Opera House, so it was pretty exciting for her. We saved the good side for her grand entrance.

 As usual, we spent a lot of money on street performers (but these guys were good).

 And we had an elegant French lunch (although the Birthday Girl chose chicken fingers as her main course)...

 with a side of the thickest hot chocolate known to man.

 After some messing around outside, we finally went into the Royal Opera House!

 We climbed lots of stairs to our nosebleed seats. These nosebleed seats actually gave us a great view of the stage, but I strongly discourage everyone from getting box seats on the side of the stage.  The last time we went to the ballet, while we got four pretty inexpensive seats, we all had to cram into one corner and lean over the side of the box in a dangerous way, to see what was happening.  So nosebleeds all the way!

In England,  it's customary to eat ice cream during the intermission of performances.  It took us a while to find it, but this was definitely a highlight for our ballerina.  She did regret choosing ginger ice cream, though, so we made a trade (I had vanilla).

 The ballet was fun, whimsical, had amazing sets, and lots of colorful costumes and exciting dancing. It was the perfect introduction for a little girl to a real  ballet performance.  When we left Evie said, 'I want to do that!'  Whether or not she makes a career of ballet, I know that this performance was just the beginning of something we'll enjoy doing together for the rest of our lives. And that makes me really happy!