Henry’s drink

We went to the Hampton Court Christmas Fayre today.  We had tickets for the afternoon and so headed out after a late breakfast. We knew that there was a rail replacement service and we followed the printed timetable. The bus itself ran later than advertised and, when it arrived, it was a lovely coach but it was packed. We did manage to get on but we were standing as far as Surbiton which unfortunately, was a very slow crawl from Raynes Park. After Surbiton, the bus emptied a little bit and we made slightly better progress but it was safer 2pm when we eventually entered.

There were Christmas stalls in the courtyards. For a moment I thought that was all there was but there were further stalls in the gardens at the back.  The usual types of stalls filled the place with all sorts of novelty items that could be bought for Christmas,  As a result I managed to get a couple of things, including something for Mum that I was planning on ordering online so it was nice to meet the makers. 

We decided to get lunch but were very undecided about which stall we should get it from. The pork baguette stall was already out of stock and the hot dog stall had an enormous queue. We eventually settled on a pulled pork bap. The pork seemed to take longer than all the others and, when it arrived was very disappointing. We did sit and look at the pond while eating it - it wasn’t very warm.  Afterwards I got a mulled wine, the first of the year for me, which was lovely and warming.

When we had finished we decided to walk back to Kingston and avoid the rail replacement services. It was a bit longer than I expected but I am glad we walked because the traffic looked terrible. We stopped off at Marks and Spencers in Kingston to pick up some more Christmas presents and a few things to make dinner. 

We got home about 5pm and spent the rest of the evening putting up the tree. As I imagined, PY had decided that it would be all silver. We don’t have that many silver decorations and it looks a little bit bare. It is not my ideal tree but I will get used to it. I think I might sneak some extra silver decorations on to it over the next few days.