Winter Wonderland

Gosia and Mitchell travelled from their home in Essex into London this morning in order to meet up with us. What a laugh we had! We had a bite to eat at Canary Wharf and then drinks in the members bar at the Tate Modern, but the highlight of the day was our visit to Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland. Gosia suggested it and we thought, why not? And I’m so glad that we went there! It is a massive installation in Hyde Park, with fairground rides, winter themed pub tents, craft stalls, a Santa area for the children, an ice rink, and probably much more; we were there for a couple of hours and only saw a fraction of it. It was all beautifully decorated with thousands of fairy lights and there were bands playing in the tents and in open areas. It was a strange but appealing mixture of German and Scandinavian and London! It was also very cold, as might be expected on a clear evening in December. However after James and Gosia went on a very high ride where they were swung around in the night sky, they were particularly chilly so we took refuge in Thor’s Tiki Bar which had real fires burning in raised fire pits in the (hopefully) flame retardant tent. We were lucky to get a bench right beside one of the fires and soon felt quite toasty. We ended the evening with a very good curry in our old favourite, Mala, back at Canary Wharf, and a final drink in a nearby pub before we said our goodbyes to Gosia and Mitchell. It was lovely to see them and we were touched that they had come into London to see us. Back at the flat Ally and Cat had just arrived home from their friends’ house and we had a wee cup of tea before bedtime.