Oh it's the most wonderful time...

...of the year!  All these poor Christmas trees!  You literally can't turn a corner in central London without bumping into another one (or three) dumped by the side of the road...the really odd thing is, I found myself waiting until I found a Christmas tree that looked satisfactory (in an aesthetic way) before I took a shot...

Christmas Tree is up!

Kids were *so* excited when they came down this morning to find it (they had no idea) all lit up and in the corner of the living room! ;)

Quick reminder to self to re-hook up the curtain tonight, looks like I must have trod on it last night bringing the tree inside! ;)

Office Christmas Tree is up!

Whoops, missed the main one in the other office (a bit less higgledy piggledy!) -

Borough Market Christmas Decorations...

...have started to appear over the last couple of days(!), these were first...

...although not all of them were illuminated, today these new objects appeared...


...(really will have to bring the proper camera in, the one on the S2 is terrible in even slightly low light)...anyway, it's turned into quite a festive walk into the office in the morning! ;)

Christmas decorations are up!

Ah, Christmas is almost here! We spent a very enjoyable Sunday (with Will Ferrell's hilarious "Elf" on the TV in the background) trying to work out how to reassemble the (German Christmas Market) Nativity (which Thomas completed for us by adding the purple hippopotamus which we had somehow managed to forget - Silly Mummy and Daddy!) -

- struggling to work out how to put together the (German Christmas Market) bell-candle-impeller-thing (sure they have a proper name, Christmas Chime or something, but I can't find it), which was totally illogical in it's construction (but we got there in the end, after only being knocked on the floor by Thomas twice, helping Daddy to start all over again-

- put batteries back in all the plush-noisy electronica and plugged in the fibre-optic nativity (which warbles a couple of cut down Christmas hymns far too noisily)-

- and ventured out into the trecherously icy garden to bring back in our live Christmas tree (now about to enjoy it's *third* year, warm and cosy in the house)-

- this is what it looked like when we first bought it back in 2008...it's practically doubled in height! :)

Anyway, the countdown is now well and truly underway, my last full day at work before Christmas is the 16th! Woo Hoo!! :)

Canary Wharf Christmas Decorations...

...are up (yay!), and it looks like they have actually bought some news ones for this year (or spruced them up a bit at the very least), no festive signs in evidence this year either...! ;)

Baby Thomas' first Christmas

What an incredible first Christmas for Thomas, absolutely surrounded by friends and family, showered with lovely presents (especially by his mum), so here are just a very few (of the millions of) pictures we took (to share some of the magic with you) -

Getting some of the presents ready, which involved ceramic paint, Thomas' foot, a lot of very tickly brushes and many, many smudged footprints...

A visit to Christmas Tree Land at Priory Farm in Nutfield, despite the fact that we already had our (still alive) tree from last year (now about twice the size) back in from the garden...(rather a good investment)!


Thomas *loved* the decorations, suddenly the boring old living room was alive with exciting new electrically powered/choking objects to try and hit and place in his mouth...

Being good at Christingle (while watching out for cocktail sticks and accidental headbutts)...

Trying out his Christmas hat... ;)

Wrapped up warm in the car seat...

Stocking full on Christmas morning...



...and gifts under the tree aplenty!

Even more impressive when all the wrapping was off... ;)

Loads more pictures here (including lots of family ones, which some of you have been asking for)... ;)

Happy New Year everyone!

Our Tiny Christmas Tree

Here we go, finally got around to taking a picture of our tiny Christmas tree...it's a live, pot grown spruce pine, apparently they grow about a foot a year, so next year it should be a little more impressive!

Had a bit of trouble actually decorating it though, almost every single decoration we owned was *way* too big (put the bauble on the branch and it simply sagged towards the ground and fell off), the smallest set of lights we could find in the house was a set of 200(!), which frankly would have completely buried the poor thing, so Sunday morning was spent on a bit of a mission to find the absolute smallest of everything on offer...

Tesco was a let down (only coloured light sets, or ones far too long), Woolworths we skipped thanks to a report that they had been already stripped of everything good, Dorking Car boot sale yielded a tiny set of hand-made painted wooden stockings and presents (for a pound), Dorking Garden Centre netted us a small pack of white glass baubles, but again no suitable lights...we finally scored a white set of 20 (just what we were after) from Knights in Betchworth (they even tested them for us before we left!) along with some adorable little hanging signs that say all sorts of festive catch phrases...and actually, it was Knights that had by far the best selection of Christmas decorations (for both inside and out) having turned over at least half the store to the purpose, so if we ever need any more, I know where I will be heading first... ;)

Christmas Decorations

So we've made a *start* on the Christmas decorations -

- Flyingpops popped up into the loft on Saturday to put a load of summer things (like the big fan) up into the loft, and bring a lot of winter things (like the Christmas decorations) down...I busied myself stringing the lights around the front of the house while she tidied up the front garden -

- although we have agreed that we are going to be doing things a little low key this year for the simple reason that we are spending Christmas day and Boxing day away at the respective sets of parents and then spending the rest of the break down in Cornwall (so there didn't seem much point in really going to town)...

- and this includes the tree - we decided to go green and buy a living one (after taking advice from the staff at Priory Farm) -

- (it's also a bit of a waste of money to spend £50, as we normally do, if we're not going to be around to enjoy it)...we had a little look around Christmas Tree Land anyway (as it is jolly festive)-

- but actually more people seemed to have come along to ride the train than actually buy any trees -

- anyway, we picked our little tree out...because it is alive and there is no danger of needle dropping we were able to go for a traditional spruce pine (with that perfect Christmas Tree shape) rather than the oddly squat and twisted non-drop ones that are popular at the moment...

It's out in the garden at the moment (where it can live inbetween Christmases from now on), I think we'll get around to actually decorating it next weekend (although it might look a little odd with the usual 200 light set smothering it)...so that might have to change!

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas...!

Well, the trees and tinsel have re-emerged from storage in the office making the place look extremely festive -

- and classes full of school children are frantically busy sliding around and falling over on the Canada Square ice rink...so here we are - December - and only 3 weeks to go!

Am I too early to wish Everyone a very merry Christmas? ;)

This does (of course) mean that once again I am going to be up a ladder this weekend, risking life and limb to put up all our lights...*gulp*... ;)

Christmas arrives at Canary Wharf

Sometimes I forget quite how tall this building is - you know, it's funny, but when I first started to work here I would be ever-so cautious when I would get near the window (just in case)...where I sit now, my printer is right up against one and I think nothing whatsoever of walking right up to it and peering down at the ants below..quite enjoy the view actually... ;) It seems that one can get used to anything, given time...

Anyway, coming into work yesterday it being distinctly cold and rainy, I decided to take the route in through the shopping centre, and behold -

- absolutely hundreds of Christmas trees have materialised (like this one) over the weekend! They are various different colours, variations on red around Cabot Square-

- and purple around Canada Square...and yes, they've done it again...Be Festive (By Order)...any Christmas spirit is tempered by the reminder that your every jolly move will be monitored on CCTV (as if anyone needed reminding)...we are, after all, home to one of Englands few T-Ray cameras (capable of peering right through your clothing)...so more than any other collective public body we are aware not much is going to happen around here without someone knowing about it... ;)

Christmas Tree is up...!

It's filling the room with an amazing "pine" smell... ;)

Tis the season...

Well, a super Christmas-themed weekend, got the decorations out of the loft (well, Flyingpops did that actually, I held the ladder), put the electric lights out all over the front of the house, in the pouring rain (even managed an extra set this year wrapped around the pillar on the porch), then zoomed to Priory Farm to their "Christmas Tree Land" -

- with everyone else in Surrey (it seems, had to drive twice around the car park before we got a spot!) -

- to choose our tree -

- didn't get quite such a huge one this year though (trying to economise where possible) still managed to spend £30 though...

Cleveryly (learned our lesson from last year) we picked one without a huge great trunk, so we only needed to saw a tiny sliver from the end to get it to fit in the base...not quite sure when we are actually going to get round to decorating *inside* the house, but the outside is certainly looking festive now... ;)

Dorking Car Boot sale (and all that jazz)

So, we got up pretty early on Sunday (as we seem to do quite often!) and headed over to Dorking to try and get a wreath for the front door (and perhaps a little something for the living room wall at the weekly car boot sale -

- it was a gloriously sunny day (and thus *absolutely* freezing) -

- but it seems the blue skies were enough to tempt about half of Dorking to either buy or sell (or come along for the walk, and maybe get a new bear to chew on, if lucky)... ;)

Spotted a new stall (seems to be, Dorking Car boot sale is becoming more and more like a market with each passing week) selling fresh fish (actually smelt quite good, i.e. non-fishy, but then, the environment *was* close to refrigerator temperatures) -

- and a good number of house clearance type removal van types -

- must only be about 50% actual car boots on offer...

Still, succeeded in our mission, got a jolly nice wreath and on a whim picked up a live tree for Flyingpops' mum, who had been bemoaning the visual appearance of the huge old fibre optic tree they bought a few years back (fetched from loft and dusted down)...so we spent a couple of hours over there eating a spot of breakfast and assisting with the erection and decoration (200 lights!!!) of the new one -

- then we zoomed around Sainsburys' in Redhill for a few bits and bobs (for me to eat while I am off on holiday), popped up to the Priory Farm shop to pick up Flyingpops' festive feast (all lovingly hand-made) which we had pre-ordered last week, and then home...

I put dinner on, was really looking forward to a nice quiet evening, and at a convenient (hrm...) moment in that process Flyingpops and I decided to take a quick look at the toilet (which has had a trickling leak from the base of the cistern for a while now), we took the lid off and promptly managed to break the arm off the ballcock...leaving the toilet in constant "I need to be filling myself up" mode...a hectic and very wet five minutes later I had the thing wedged back into "I'm full" mode using the arm from the ballcock and a VW Beetle wall ornament...not ideal, but better than holding it with my finger, however, there was just no way we could risk leaving it like that overnight...

Flyingpops rang her dad for emergency assistance and he said he was "Coming right over", so while the cavalry were on their way we threw as much dinner down our throats as possible (before it went cold). As it happens Uncle Al actually drove Flyingpops' dad over and the pair of them (after calling for "Tea please!") had the whole thing locked down almost before the kettle had boiled...! Amazing!

Only bad thing as a result is no flushing toilet for the time being...we are awaiting a plumber to come today to take a look, but no sign yet...so my hopes of anything happening today are dwindling...For now, a bucket rests beside the toilet to do the flushing for us (which does the job for now, if inelegantly)...but why do these things always seem to crop up right before Christmas, eh...? ;)

Oh, and just before I go, a quick detox update - Day #5 now, mucked up a bit on Saturday (had a Big Mac and some Chicken Nuggets), but everything else is still going 100% and as it's been easy and rewarding I think there may be a related New Year's resolution in the pipeline ;)

Update - Plumber came, and apart from a few minutes on his mobile and a few ticks drinking tea, he was in and out within about half-an-hour! We now have a leak-free, flushing toilet...phew... ;)