Merry Christmas

Christmas is the one time of year you get to feel like a kid again. I was so excited last night that I almost wanted to open all the presents and had to try restrain myself. The only difference being that I wasn’t actually excited about opening my own gifts but couldn’t wait for my husband to open all the presents I had brought for him. It must be a sign that I am growing up. It was our first Christmas on our own. London tends to completely shut down on Christmas day leaving those with no transport a little stranded, which also means a mass exodus on Christmas Eve. This meant that Will and I had the choice of spending £30 or more on a taxi to get to friends, or spending Christmas at home, just the two of us. You know that you’ve married the right person when Christmas is just as special with just a two person family.
We went for a walk before lunch and had the pleasure of seeing all the children’s new Christmas presents being taken out for a spin. There were new bikes, roller skates and remote control cars being played with in the park. Although the little girl with the roller skates was not so much as skating, as being held up by her father and pushed along.
According to the Christmas check list it has been a rather successful Christmas day.
There were awesome presents
Family
Mince pies and plenty of drink
And I have eaten so much food I can barely move.
Now for an afternoon nap and Christmas will be complete.
Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

It's nearly Christmas :)

Christmas is less than a week away! London is, as Craig Revel Horwood wood say, FAB-U-LOUS at Christmas time. (By the way, congrats to Harry Judd on winning this years’ Strictly Come Dancing. Now I’ll have to find something else to do on Saturday night…)
Christmas is the perfect time to feel like a tourist again. Everywhere you go is filled with lights, Christmas trees with decorations and fantastically cheesy songs like Last Christmas by Wham. Feeling festive we decided to go to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park; but apparently everyone else that evening had had the same idea. We queued for 5 minutes to exit the tube station only to arrive at a queue of fellow holiday revelers of 50 deep and 30 people wide who were waiting to get into Winter Wonderland. Not a huge fan of crowds, even if it was for mulled wine and a German market, we decided to see what else London could offer us. Thankfully there is always something to see in London, even if it is a four storey store with M&M merchandise. Here are some pictures of us being tourists in London….

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you have a blessed Christmas and a wonderful new year!

The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld

I find nothing better than a good murder mystery, especially an historical one, so I was very eager to immerse myself in the Interpretation of Murder. It is set in 1909 when Sigmund Freud went on his one and only trip to America to deliver a series of lectures on psychoanalysis; after which he described the Americans as “savages”. He always spoke in later years of this visit as if some trauma had befallen him in the United States. No-one knows for sure what happened to Freud to make him react this way. Jed Rubenfeld takes this historical fact and creates a scenario where Freud’s visit coincides with a mysterious murder. The second victim manages to survive and Dr Younger, a Freud devotee, is asked by Sigmund Freud to help the second victim regain her memory after the attack by using Freud’s techniques. Jed has moved some historical details around as he explains in the author’s note but I loved his attention to detail, especially the description of the privileged upper class New York socialites and the strained relationship between Freud and his then disciple Carl Jung. I found it compelling and a real ‘who dunnit’ which kept me guessing all the way through and  found it a fascinating portrayal of the New York of 1909 and an excellent debut novel by Rubenfeld.

A hard day at the office

I work in a particularly British office. And by that I mean that we have at least 4 cups of tea a day. Which is fantastic since I love a nice cup of tea (anyone who had read 1 of my previous posts would know it has been inbred in me) but the only problem is that, being an all female office there is usually some kind of chocolate, pastry or biscuit type treat. It is no surprise that I have put on a little weight. I had to go up a pants (or trousers, depending where you're reading this from) size. One morning whilst getting dressed I did the customary sucking in of appropriate body parts to do up my button. It was when I exhaled and the button popped off that I thought some exercise was in order. In hind sight I shouldn't have been trying to squeeze into pants that were obviously too tight, but this kind of wisdom only comes with experience.
I have since begun walking the half hour (depending on the size of your legs) journey to the train station in the morning. It's a nice feeling of accomplishment before I start my day. And since the bus I used to catch was so rare it was on the verge of becoming an endangered species, I get to the station at around the same time anyway, I just spend less time waiting in the morning and more time doing. I have also practiced saying NO so I am not tempted by tea time treats. But there are mince pies in the office, and it is nearly Christmas, so maybe I'll just have one.

It's been a little while

It irks me when a blog entry begins with an apology by the blogee for not blogging in a while; so it pains me to say...
Sorry you few and faithful readers, but I haven't blogged in a while.
But I have a good excuse, it was my birthday! And I *gasp* turned 29. The last year of my 20's is sadly upon me. I remember being 16 when I could barely wait to turn 20. The 27 plus people I knew seemed so cool and sophisticated and looked like they had their lives all figured out. I should have asked them as I'm sure it wasn't the case; as I, in my late 20's, feel no cooler, I am definitely not sophisticated and I am a long way from having my life all figured out. Nevertheless, the dreaded 30 is still an entire year away. I have heard the 30’s club is not so bad, but I have 362 days until I have to think about that.

And I wonder if young impressionable teens now look at me and think how cool and sophisticated I am. But somehow I find that very unlikely.

Anyway Happy Birthday to me!

Beautiful Bride

As I have mentioned before, one of the things I love about my husbands career, is that I get to see the photo's before anyone else does; and this is especially true when he photographs a wedding. What girl doesn't love looking at wedding photo's. The wedding he went to shoot in South Africa recently was no exception. It looked like such a fun wedding, and the bride looked gorgeous. These were some of my favourites

The 72 day itch

Kim Kardashian is getting divorced after 72 days of marriage? What a joke! I’ve had food in my fridge for longer than that. Granted I should have thrown it out after it began to smell, but at least I know a thing or two about commitment. How bad could things be to call it quits after only 2 months and 2 weeks? Most people are still in the honeymoon stage at that point. Even after my humble 4 and a half years of marriage, I still hate being away from Will. He recently went home to South Africa to shoot a wedding, and I missed him terribly while he was away. So much so that I became quite a useless individual:

1. The inability to cook - Men may relate to this one more, but when my husband is away I can't see the point in making an entire meal for just one person. It takes longer to cook the meal than it does to eat it and dishes are your dirty reward at the end of it. One evening was a delicious meal of bacon flavoured crisps (my meat and veg), blueberry yogurt (fruit and dairy) and a cup of tea - at least I made sure it was a balanced meal. The fact that I haven't cooked a meal in 4 years also weighed heavily against any culinary brilliance whilst he was away.

2. My IQ level lowered significantly - There are certain movies that I am not allowed to watch because my husband refuses, and vice versa, it's called compromise. I haven't seen a Will Ferrell movie since we met because my hubby can't stand him. I, on the other hand, loved movies like Elf and Old School. So when he was away I thought it the perfect time to watch movies that I ordinarily would be banned from seeing. My movie choice comprised of Scream 4 (I had seen the first 3 and it would just be wrong not to complete it), Stepbrothers and Blades of glory. I see now that there is a reason I have been banned from these movies. My mind felt like porridge by the end of it, unable to hold an intelligent thought.

3. First sign of madness, I began talking to myself - ‘The Female Brain’ by Louann Brizendine states that women speak an average of 20,000 words a day, compared to men who only speak 7000 words per day. Whether or not this is scientific fact, it is definitely true in our marriage. I hate silence, and I like to fill it, either with music, TV, or the sound of my own voice (or sometimes the sound of my own voice OVER the TV or music.) You can imagine what torture it was for me to not have Will to chat to in the evening. I began to discuss things with myself, and tell myself what I think we should do next. I was, understandably, getting very bored of my own company by the end.

You can imagine how happy I was when he returned home, the promise of decent meals and intelligent conversation returning with him!