Christmas time in London

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December 15th 2007

Published: January 17th 2008

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Mr Leeds United

Wesyminster Abbey and London Eye

Look at that blue sky!

Following our very successful weekend in Amsterdam, it was back to work, and the countdown to Christmas. 14 working days to be precise. It is looking to be a very busy period with Leah’s birthday, her party, heading up to Leeds, several Christmas parties and also Steve and Stew arriving over here for a visit from NZ.

The following week from Amsterdam, I had tickets to go and see Marilyn Manson, who put on a fantastic show, complete with American shooting and Nazi references, and burning a bible on stage. It was goth central there and I had a great time. One of the better performers I’ve seen.

For the weekend, I headed up to Leeds to join the sellout crowd of 32,501 watch the local derby between Leeds and Huddersfield. Leeds marked the 10 year anniversary of Billy Bremner’s death (our greatest ever player) in style by hammering Huddersfield 4-0, and despite the weather, everyone was in fine voice to help them celebrate.

Then it was a mission back to London in time for Leah’s dress-up birthday/flatwarming party. I managed to get in costume (Leonidas, Spartan King and Warlord, ie from the movie 300) and get there

The two pygmies

We needed a camera for a split decision over who was taller. The pygmy won.

in time to join Ben in adding to the festive spirit by mixing up a batch of egg nog. It turned out fantastically and reminded me of Christmas Day at home. The rest of the night was fantastic, illustrated by the fact we looked at our watches and it was almost 6am! A good effort, and a selection of the photos that are allowed to see the light of day are attached on here.

The following Wednesday was my first UK work Christmas party, and despite hearing many, many horror stories about people embarrassing themselves and putting their jobs in jeopardy, I was relatively well-behaved. Those of you ex-PMP people will find that hard to believe I know.

For Leah’s birthday on the 15th, we headed to see Lord Of The Rings, the musical. And of course, we nearly missed the beginning because the 'star' of the show was late. She maintains that it wasn't her fault, but I don't know....... Otherwise, it was a pretty good show, just not quite as good as Wicked.

And all of a sudden it was Christmas time. In London, the public transport doesn't run on Christmas Day, so us orphan

Triceratops

And me! After having a huge interest in dinosaurs as a kid, I finally get to see them in real life, or at least as close as i'm probably going to get without a time machine.

Kiwi's and token American had a sleepover at Leah and Hannah's place and had a big Christmas Day dinner there. The token American was my friend Laurel, whom I had met in Bucharest in Romania and travelled to Budapest with. It was great to see her again and she loved spending her first Christmas away from home among other travellers.

Christmas dinner was a success, despite tea towels catching on fire, plastic sieves melting, and the turkey taking an extra couple of hours. Leah and Hannah were marvellous cooks, especially for 11 of us. We had a turkey, a ham and 2 chickens, so no one definately went hungry! It was delicious as well. As the carver and the person who did all the man tasks in the kitchen, I managed to sneak a few of the choicest cuts. 😊 Apart from the food, we also had Secret Santa, so everyone got presents on Christmas. I stepped up and played Santa and everyone jumped on for a sit and photo on Santa's knee. And finally, again I say a big thank you to Leah and Hannah for being such awesome and organised hosts!

After a couple of nights