A White Christmas

The snow didn't stop us picking up our rental car and hitting the M4 to Cardiff. It was an easy drive, little traffic and despite lots of snow along the route the road was clear of any ice or snow. Once in Cardiff there was a bit more snow and ice on the roads but we managed to find our apartment and navigate all the entry and safe codes to get our key. We heaved our luggage up to our apartment which was spacious and well appointed. We dumped our stuff and headed out to have a look around town before it got dark and everything closed up. Town was reasonably quiet with just a few last minute shoppers and a few Christmas eve drinkers out. We picked up a gingerbread latte before finding the mulled wine and bratwurst stands which we had to stop at...

Home via the friendly local pub called the cricketers. We had the Christmas phone call with our folks, Jackie set up the Christmas tree and we put out our Christmas stockings for Santa.

Christmas morning arrived, bright sunshine and pristine white snow, what a perfect start to Christmas day, the sun came streaming into our lounge right onto our tree.

We decided to start the day with a light healthy breakfast in preparation for our afternoon feast...

After breakfast we got in to the serious business of present opening...

And then went out for a walk in the hope of building a snowman. Unfortunately the snow was too powdery (like dry sand but cold) to build a snow man, so we gave snow angels a go instead. Jackie's was by far the best.

Some more photos from our walk:

Us modelling our new hat and scarf sets...

The SWALEC stadium, home of the Glamorgan cricket team, an ashes test was played here last year

Lots of snow

Jackie throwing the powdery snow in the air

After our walk in the snow it was back to the apartment for Christmas music, mulled wine and cooking. We decided to do a roast duck this year as we had turkey last week with the family. I'd never done a duck before but it was pretty straight forward, just a lot more fat to deal with.

Here I am modelling a new shirt from Jackie and the apron was actually a present from me to Jackie.

Work in progress, duck, potatoes and stuffing in the roasting dish. Brussel sprouts with water chestnuts and bacon in the pan and mulled wine at the back.

 Jackie provided us with a beautiful table setting.

Dinner is served (by this stage we'd eaten so much cheese and crackers and chips that it was quite an effort to get through the roast

Jackie modelling her new tunic along with all her presents laid out under the tree

We finished off the night with a game of scrabble while watching Christmas movies.

Thank you all for your lovely gifts and cards, we were thoroughly spoilt.

We had a wonderful Christmas day and would like to extend a heartfelt invitation to our families to join us for a winter Christmas in the English countryside in 2011, we can't guarantee a white Christmas but we can guarantee a good time!

A Bush Family Christmas

This year Jackie and I decided to host a pre Christmas meal for our extended family in London.

So on Sunday afternoon we had Hannah (cousin on my dad's side) and her boyfriend Jim, Carla (cousin on my mum's side), Ngaire (a sister in law of the cousins on my mum's side) and Jen (Jackie's cousin on her dad's side) over for dinner. So that was 7 of us in total for the full monty Christmas turkey with almost all the trimmings.

It was a white Christmas day after the heavy snow on Saturday, fortunately everyone was able to make it on time.

I was chef for the day while Jackie played hostess.

Below is a photo of the turkey getting lashings of bacon applied...

With our new oak table we had enough dining table space to have everyone at the dining table and Jackie did a great job on the place settings...

This photo has us all in it but is a bit fuzzy...

Here's a photo of the girls sans Hannah...

Hannah and Jim...

The hosts, Mr and Mrs Bush...

A great time was had by all, we did all the usual Christmas day things - ate too much, drank too much, had the odd deep and meaningful conversation but generally just had a good time spending time with family. We really appreciated the opportunity to have some quality family time given we're so far away from our immediate families.

With all the snow we're not sure if we're going to get to Cardiff for our Christmas holiday, we won't risk driving in snowy/icy conditions so may end up staying in London instead, which will be fine by us, especially if there is lots of snow around and it's a proper white Christmas!

Hope everyone's Christmas preparations are going well.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

You've probably seen it on the news where ever you are, we've had big dump of snow in the past couple of days which has really heightened the Christmas vibe.

Hopefully the snow lasts till Christmas day, although I also hope they manage to clear the roads so we can get to Cardiff. 

Below is a photo of the snow this morning from our window

Because of the snow yesterday we finished at work at lunch time to make sure everyone could get home without too much disruption. With my few extra hours I went and signed up at the local gym.

I've never joined a gym before so this was all a bit new for me. The guy showed me around the gym, I just wanted to make sure they had decent treadmills and enough of them that I'll be able to get on one when I wanted. I signed away my life and managed to get the full monty membership at a discount because I live in Du Cane Court.  

So this morning I got suited up and headed to the gym, I felt like a fish out of water. First of all when you go into the gym they tell you a number, today it was ten ten. I have no idea what this number is for and am a bit unsure about asking. I didn't really know where I was going, I followed the signs to the changing rooms and eventually found them. After getting changed I went to put my gear in the locker, I'd bought a padlock like I was told but everyone else had the same, combination style, padlock. My padlock was too small for the locker so didn't work which meant I had to leave my gear in an unlocked locker. 

Got to the treadmill, lots of buttons, I just pushed the green one which got me going. Did 6k. Got off the treadmill and almost fell over in front of all the girls on the cross trainer machines because my legs were all wobbly from having been on the treadmill. I managed to get back to my locker, my gear was still there, got changed and headed off to find another heavy snow flurry. So that was my first gym experience, still a bit unsure about it but there is no way I'm running in the snow and if I want to have some sort of fitness for the Paris marathon in April I need to be doing something so I'll do the gym for a month at least. 

Jackie and I are heading out for dinner tonight at a friend's new house which would normally be 20 minutes walk away, should be an interesting walk this evening in the snow.

Glass and Ceramics

Over the past couple of years I have taken to collecting glass and ceramics, mainly from charity shops around the place. I'm not quite sure where it first started, although I think it was a trip to York at the beginning of this year when things really took off. Anyway, I've now got quite a good little collection of ceramics and depression glass.

Today when we were in Brighton at a flea market I found another green depression glass bowl to add to my growing collection, down to £4 from £8 I could hardly refuse.

Simon has given me the hard word about only buying stuff I really want and to think about where I'm going to display it all, as we don't have a huge amount of space, so far I've managed to ignore this advice, I figure once I've got too much stuff we'll just have to get a bigger place!

I'm taking it reasonably seriously and am keeping a log book of all the things I buy, how much they cost and where I got them from. I've also been quite selective in what I've bought.

Over the coming months I'll try and post more photos of my collection.

Surprise!

So on Thursday, while I'm at work I get an email from Jackie asking if I was available on Sunday for a surprise day out with her.

The excitement has built over the past few days as a couple of details became clear, such as I would need to be ready to leave at 9:15 in the morning, we wouldn't be home until after six and we'd be going out of London.

So this morning we get ready and rush off to the station to pick up our train tickets, turns out we've got a day out in Brighton together. It was a very crisp clear day so a good day for a trip to the sea, and Brighton is a great town for walking around, seeing lots of weird and interesting people, eating and shopping - we did plenty of all of this.

The main event was lunch/afternoon tea at Metro-Deco Tea Room (http://www.metro-deco.com/), which is a tea rooms in art deco style. As well as the tea room they also sell art deco and antique furniture, the seats we were sitting on were £650!! Lucky we didn't spill anything on them. In addition they also sell loose leaf tea.

Jackie got a deal where we got a proper English afternoon tea including sandwiches, tarts and scones with jam and clotted cream...

In addition we got a pot of tea each and a bag each of loose leaf tea to take away, which is great because we got a new tea pot in Bruges with a strainer in it.

A photo of the interior (we were sitting under the palm tree)

Me with my tea

And a photo from the outside

We then went for a walk along the beach to walk off our food, Jackie managed to buy a bowl along the way, the subject of the next post.

A really lovely day, and such a great surprise, aren't I lucky to have a wife like Jackie.

Christmas Tree

Once again we've bought a real Christmas tree with the intention of packing it up for our Christmas away. At the moment we've got the tree decorated and standing on our 'new' oak table. The colour scheme for the decorations this year was red with natural pale straw and wood. Many of the decorations were newly acquired in Bruges.

Below are a couple of photos with a few presents starting to build up as well...

Underdressed

So I went for a jog yesterday, wrapped up warm in my thermals, hat and gloves but little did I know I'd be totally under dressed, I should have been wearing a red Santa suit like the other couple of thousand people running around Battersea Park...

I assume they're all in training for Christmas eve.

Santa, if you're reading this Jackie and I will be in Cardiff for Christmas so you can find us there.

Bruges

Just back from Bruges, the low down as follows:

We were worried that the snow might affect our journey and sure enough when we checked the Eurostar website on Wednesday night the Eurostar was running a heavily reduced service to Bruges but the train we had booked was still running.

We left the flat at 6:20 and there was fresh snow everywhere which was pretty but a worry as well. Despite leaving the house pretty much as scheduled we got St Pancras only just in time and had to run to the platform, we were whisked to the front of the crowds of people and given First Class upgrades as they were reallocating all the seats. Quickly through security and customs and we are sitting comfortably in our First Class Eurostar seats (which we'd paid a bargain price of about £35 for) which included breakfast (unfortunately there was lots of wheat and dairy so I ate most of Jackie's). The journey was slower than normal because of the heavy snow across the UK but we got to Brussels and made the interchange for Bruges. Complete white out all the way from London to Bruges was quite spectacular.

Got the bus to our B&B accommodation in Bruges. Vincent, the B&B owner was very nice and welcoming he showed us to our room which was the former studio of an artist called Roger Gobron (http://www.rogergobron.com/), the room we had, had a special feature, well two actually. The first is the painted square canvases which are fixed to the wall with velcro, Vincent explained that each guest is asked to rearrange the squares in their own style, the photo below shows the style we arrived too...

The second special feature was a light show thing in the ceiling, very hard to describe, it was weird. Not sure if it was supposed to be romantic, it was just odd, but in a cool way. If you're ever in Bruges stay at Vincent's 'In Burges' B&B http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g188671-d1393199-Reviews-In_Bruges_Bed_Breakfast-Bruges_West_Flanders.html, it's very good and you'll get to understand what I mean about this light show thing.

It was arctic in Bruges, not sure what the actual temperature was but the forecast was for minus 7, so it was pretty cold and there was lots of snow around, although it wasn't snowing. We put on pretty much all the clothes we owned and headed out to explore, first of all stopping at a lovely tea rooms for lunch, http://www.merveilleux.eu/ I had chicken and mushroom casserole in puff pastry, I'm pretty sure there was loads of cream in the sauce which made it delicious. Jackie has the first of four goats cheese salads that were eaten over the two days. The food was great, service brilliant and the atmosphere of a real locals place, we were very pleased with our find. A photo from outside included below:

From here we started our exploring, having a look around the Christmas markets in the main square, they weren't that great. We did some shopping, picked up some chocolates and generally just did some sightseeing. When it came time to find somewhere for dinner we managed to find a recommended restaurant called The Hobbit which was famed for it's all you can eat ribs. The restaurant had a great atmosphere, despite the slightly poor service. The food was great, I had the spicy ribs, Jackie had a goats cheese salad (number 2). Some highlights from dinner included the antics from the old American couple at the table next to us, such as putting a paper napkin on the candle, the waitress calmly took the burning napkin and put it on a plate and left it at the bar to burn out - I suspect they're used to Americans doing stupid things like this.

On leaving dinner we noticed the pub across the road was the 300 Belgian beers pub which we'd heard about, we noted to return there the next day.

Home from dinner we treated ourselves to the chocolates that were bought earlier in the day.

Vincent brought us breakfast to have in our room...

Yum.

After breakfast we headed out for some sightseeing, one of the notable sights was Michaelangelo's Madonna and Child sculpture...

We visited a few chocolate shops, although only bought in a couple. It was astounding the number of chocolate shops, we're not sure how they all survive.

We had another nice lunch, choosing the table next to the heater to thaw out. Jackie ordered the set meal (soup, salad, coffee), the salad of choice... goats cheese, although I actually had the goats cheese salad while Jackie had the chicken salad which I ordered as it wasn't on the set menu. We stayed there long enough to thaw out before heading out for more walking around town.

I forgot to mention that we were lucky enough to have beautiful sunshine all day, which was great and meant that we could meander our way around Bruges, we walked though some parks, past frozen lakes and the swans, which I think are a bit of an icon in Bruges. We had to check in at an internet cafe to se if anything had been posted about the next days eurostar service as we weren't sure if we'd be able to get back to London.

Then the shopping started in earnest, just as I was starting to get tired. Several Christmas shops and homewares shops, and tea shops were visited with purchases from several shops. We did get to stop for the obligatory Belgian waffle which perked me up.

With our shopping completed we went to find the 300 belgian beer pub, which took a while to find but it was worth the hunt. We got a nice table at the back near a heater and ordered two Bush beers...
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g188671-d1181346-r45762546-T_Brugs_Beertje-Bruges_West_Flanders.html

My one (the smaller of the 2) was 12% alcohol! Jackie's was a mere 8.5%.

Needless to say we had to have another after spotting that Bush was doing a Christmas beer. Jackie had this (12%) while I head a wheat beer.

From here we went to dinner at a nice restaurant called Simon's somthingarather. http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g188671-d1045531-Reviews-Simon_Stevin-Bruges_West_Flanders.html It was very nice, I had the mussels, another Belgian must. Jackie had... goats cheese salad (we shared it this time as an entrée, it was great) followed by chicken breast. We both got frites (belgian chips) with our mains and duly wolfed them down with mayonnaise, very european of us.

Final day started with another great breakfast from Vincent and a little more shopping to pick up the last chocolates. We decided to head to Brussels early even though our train wasn't scheduled to depart till  8pm because we'd heard the trains might not be running so we figured they migh put us on an earlier one if they had the space, which they did, which was great because it meant we got home much earlier than we'd expected.

So that was Bruges, we really enjoyed it and would love to go back if we ever got the chance.

A few random touristy photos below...

I almost forgot, before we left the B&B we had to rearrange the canvasses to our own design, below is what we did...

Snow

You may have heard that there's been a bit of snow across the UK in the past couple of days. It's quite early in the season for us to get snow but it's been quite good timing to help everyone get a bit more festive.

It's of course been really cold, and the wind today made it even worse than yesterday, not sure if the temperature got above 0 today.

We're off to Bruges tomorrow where the high tomorrow is supposed to be minus 7 (low of minus 11). Lots of mulled wine, Belgian beer, waffles and chips with mayonnaise to keep us warm I'm sure.

The snow hasn't had a major affect on our daily lives, it took me a bit longer to get home from work last night and I was late in to work this morning but nothing like the major disruptions which normally happen at least once a winter.

A couple of photos from our building below.

Oh yes, an update on Christmas cake 2.0, just as good as version 1.0, possibly better with almonds and more brandy used this time.