kezia (aged 1 and ten 12ths) decided she wanted to decorate her own little tree. whilst we got on doing the main tree she carefully selected and installed a small set of decorations on our cheapy tinsel tree. she was really concentrating and in her own little world. it was really very very sweet !
what a fantastic day !
we started off with an excellent service at church (we were playing and i don’t think we stuffed up too much). there was a nice kids song to wig out to which is always handy for a bass player. there was also a massive party for the kids so they had a great time too (and one of our friend’s children got baptised)
then we were invited round for lunch spontaneously at some friends house which was fantastic. the unplanned nature of it made it even better ! whilst there we saw some friends we see about twice a year who have just popped back to see their folks over christmas.
after that we came home, dropped off the music kit and went out to the Christingle service with some other friends. i was asked at the last minute to light a few christingles during the service and given a box of cooks matches. however, when my moment came i was trumped by a man with an automatic gas cooker lighter thing. he went whizzing up and down the church before i had even lit my first one. it was SO unfair !
after tea, coffee, cake, biscuits etc we headed off to some other friends from church’s house for a party. this was really nice too. especially this table decoration which is a melting skull candle adjacent to a couple of butter knives ! very festive. they also have a knitted nativity.
finally it was back to our house to put some decorations up, kids to bed. jane’s gone off to sing in another carol service and i’m about to tidy up the house !
today’s been a great start to christmas, covering all the main themes. friends, family, church and melting skulls.
day twenty one of the advent calendar picture challenge – it’s a stocking i think
here is esther and kezia wearing their christmas stockings. they are actually bags for christmas presents, but i think that’s about the same thing.
they are obviously not for wearing which makes wearing them all the more obvious (if you are a kid).
yet another photo for davescollections. we had a family outing to london today. we were very tired by the time we got to westminster, but i was keen we walked up whitehall to trafalgar square. it also meant we passed horseguard parade so i would get a photo of a horse for today’s advent calendar picture.
Just next to horseguards parade, jane spotted the top of this bloke’s head on a teeny piece of photo on the floor. we then spent the next five minutes on a family hunt for other bits of the photo. we only managed to find 3 pieces. I suspect they may actually belong to two seperate photos because the bottom two bits overlap slightly.
so how fantastic is that ! a family lost photo find. i would definately have walked past this one. esther was very pleased.
here is a sign of someone getting clonked by a stick. the photo didn’t come out very well, so i will revisit it another day. this will do you for now.
we took esther and kezia to london today. we were going to do the george w bush memorial walk, but it was chucking it down with rain, so we went to the Tate Modern instead. After much fun there we walked down the south bank to trafalgar square via westminster (so esther could see big ben).
fun on the bakerloo line:
I’ve mentioned the installation before, but here are some new pictures:
sleepy kezia (and blanket) and esther
kezia looking at the ceiling and jane looking cute:
esther took this photo of me unhelped (not bad for a 4 year old):
on the way back we saw Big Ben:
day twenty of the advent calendar picture challenge – it’s a donkey
here is today’s photo:
although the actual photo should be this one. if it hadn’t been for the advent challenge we may not have found this find !
people have a lovely time at christmas. here some jolly types had, wait for it, drawn a smiley face on a transparent bag of waste paper and written ‘mr snowman’ at the bottom ! brilliant. i hope it made the bin men smile as much as it did me.
here we are at our office christmas party.
here is rather nice red juice stain from my sweet
day nineteen of the advent calendar picture challenge – it’s another wise man
here is my photo. it’s my company’s CEO’s mouth.
i was sitting next to him at our xmas lunch and he’s obviously a very wise man. i say that not especially because he might be reading this. but he might be.
happy christmas (thanks to tony for sending me this)
christmas is all about shopping, chocolate and jesus.
the office cleaners have focussed on the chocolate element. here is a big box of chocolates they have given the office as a present to say thanks for all the mess we’ve left them to clean up over the last 12 months.
home made biscuit on a grafitti-ed telephone cabinet
and here is a lemon on a zebra crossing
following elton’s comments on the found pound i’ve decide to combine the two concepts. i’ll leave the money on the street, but donate my own equivalence to the needy, thus doubling the street value.
i saw very little sign of life this morning whilst walking to work. even the street cleaners were thinner on the ground (quite literally). but i did see some evidence of night-before partying.
here is an estate agents office. through the window i could see a bottle of champagne and a half empty glass on this person’s desk. i assume this is from last night, but maybe it’s a very bling-blingy hair-of-the-dog ?
and here is someone’s bow tie. i’m sure there’s a story behind it’s removal. you’ll have to make that up yourselves.
day eighteen of the advent calendar picture challenge – it’s an angel
here is the day’s photo. it’s of the angel from our christmas tree which we didn’t put away in the christmas decorations box in january. it’s been up all year which has been nice.
hasn’t she got the coolest hair and halo ?
what is this frosty item ? click to find out.
today was a good day for sunlight shining through things. here is a beam at paddington station and a beam in the wood in apsley (wherever that is).
