Mince Pies

I got up later than I wanted to. We were expecting the Christmas tree to be delivered today. When I got up PY told me it hadn’t been delivered but I walked into the living room and there it was. I’d not heard it arriving at all. It’s quite bushy, and maybe a little shorter than the real trees we have had, but it it looks lovely.  While I made my last food test breakfast (eggs and orange juice) a delivery of wine arrived from Majestic. C has sent them so that they are here for Christmas. There were 12 bottles so I think Christmas is very well sorted. I started putting up the lights around the windows so that I don’t have to fight past a Christmas tree loaded with decorations.  I got the ones behind the shutters complete. 

After all the deliveries we took a train to Kingston. We wanted to do a little bit of Christmas shopping but I came away with a large number of birthday cards as well.  There’s a Christmas Shop on the ground floor of The Bentall Centre which is lovely - although I only bought a new Christmas tree decoration (£3.50) to keep up with that tradition.  We took a walk around he various Christmas markets. At one point we stopped to buy a Halloumi wrap. The stall preferred cash but I didn’t have any and the owner tried very hard to make me go a get some from a cash machine. It was only when I said I’d go somewhere else that the card machine arrived. I am not sure why it annoyed me so much.  I tried to pick up some things in M&S but it was impossible to find anything so I gave up. 

Since some friends had mentioned it, we’d wanted to try the Cursor cinema rooftop bar. When we found it, the terrace was open but the bar was closed. It’s not surprising as it was freezing up there and I can’t imagine there were any customers willing to sit outside. So, we sat on one of the indoor sofas and ordered hot chocolate and mince pies. It kept the Christmas spirit going even if we had to watch the staff march a group of teenage boys out of the venue.

We ate burgers for dinner while Strictly was on in the background. Later, we decided to watch a film and found Uncharted on Netflix.  It’s a treasure hunt story starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg. A cross of Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean and, I think, you can see some Spiderman in the Tom Holland character (or maybe I was just projecting). It was a fun way to spend a Saturday night but the tree did not get decorated.