Sunday 11 December 2011

A December Saturday in London...

London decided to play host to the most beautiful winter weather yesterday - bright blue cloudless skies and lovely sunshine...but my goodness it was cold. 


The weekend has focused on celebrating the birthdays of two good friends. I met the first on Saturday afternoon at the theatre to see 'Three Days in May' which is about (oddly enough), the three days in late May 1940 just before the evacuation from Dunkirk when Churchill and the war cabinet discussed (and dismissed) the possibility of negotiating a peace treaty with Hitler - excellent production...I'd highly recommend it to anyone living in or near London. The theatre where it was being held is right at the top of Whitehall, near Trafalgar Square, so given that I was a little early, and the sunshine so lovely, I decided to spend a few moments admiring one of my favourite London landmarks...
Admiralty Arch

Trafalgar Square itself appeared to inundated by hundreds of Santa's - they were pouring in from all directions. I tried to grab a few pictures, but as I wasn't prepared to cross the road into the square and join the Santa-melee, you'll have to excuse the picture quality...

I'm still yet to determine the reason for their presence...

Once the play had finished, K and I decided to repair to somewhat more refined surroundings for a drink to celebrate her birthday before joining the second birthday dinner in the evening. So, a brusque walk up through Piccadilly and Mayfair saw us to the door of one of my favourite hotels/bars in London...


The Connaught Hotel - unfortunately, it is somewhere I only get to visit on special occasions due to the incongruence between the prices on their wine list and my budget - but you do get a lovely provision of complimentary bar snacks. I also managed to indulge in some (for me) pretty impressive celebrity spotting - sitting next to us in the bar was Matthew MacFadyen (aka, Mr Darcy from the P&P film) and his wife Keeley Hawes. After a very civilised hour or so, we ventured further west to meet our other friends and continue the celebration.

And I couldn't resist picking up this little sweetie at the supermarket this weekend. Robynne from Robynne's Nest had the most beautiful photos on her blog last week of miniature pointsettias (I'd highly recommend a visit to her blog to see for yourself). So, when I saw this for the princely sum of £2 I couldn't resist...
...it doesn't quite have the gorgeousness of Robynne's jam jars lined with music manuscript, but I thought it was quite charming nonetheless...

1 comment:

  1. Hey Annie, thanks for your lovely recommendation...and you did well, I think mine were £2.99! They are just gorgeous aren't they. We just had a little xmas party on Friday night and everyone loved them. Looks like you had a lovely day...London is gorgeous at the moment with all the xmas lights...and I wonder what was going on with all those Santas! I think I better put the Connaught on my list of places to visit still...hopefully I might sit next to George Clooney or Colin Friel!! Have a great week. Robx

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