Wintery weekend

Winter has arrived in London and this morning when Buggy and I went to the park there was a nice layer of frost over the grass. Mid-morning it is -1C and just cold enough to see both my and Buggy's breath in the air. However it is perfectly pleasant out and I am in awe that it won't get any colder than this. It will, of course, get wetter! I feel like it's so far, so good, and if this is the worst that it gets I can handle it, but I'm sure that attitude will change if you ask me again at the end of February!

Friday night Noise and I went skating at Somerset House, which was excellent fun. We were quite impressed by the whole operation, especially the rental skates - they were Nike leisure skates in excellent shape! It did rain a little bit, but not enough to spoil the experience.

Following that we walked down the Strand to Trafalgar Square to admire the enormous tree there. A tree is donated to London every year from the people of Norway in thanks for their help during the second world war. We liked this particular view of the tree with Nelson and Ben in the background.

Last night was my work Christmas-do, and it was back to the skating rink for another round! This time we were skating at Hampton Court Palace, another beautiful setting. Not as well organized as Somerset House, and the skates were awful, but a good time was had by all. Then we were off for dinner across the road for an excellent three-course meal and our Secret Santa gifts. All-in-all it was a lovely evening out and a great chance to socialize with my work colleagues.

And next weekend we're off to Berlin! Then it will really feel like Christmas after we've spent 4 days wandering around the German Christmas markets! (Ok, who am I kidding - we put up our Christmas tree last weekend so we're all set. This involved buying a cut tree at a stand down on the North End Road and then carrying it home on the vespa, giggling the whole way. Good times...)

Final piece of news, the January ski trip has been booked and modified. We're still going for a week but not skiing the whole time. Instead we're combining a sight-seeing trip with a ski trip. We're off to Switzerland, flying into Geneva before traveling to the ski resort of Saas-Fee for 3 nights. After that we'll be traveling by train to the Jungfrau region to visit Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, and Gimmelwald. From there it's train to Zurich and we fly home from there. When I did the big 1995 Europe trip with the PetParents and the Singer, if I could have chosen one place from the whole 5 weeks and 8 countries to return to, it would be Gimmelwald, a tiny village high up on the side of a mountain in the Swiss Alps. So I'm taking Noise there. I am really interested to see it in the winter this time. Also I think we'll take the train trip up to the Jungfraujoch, the highest train station in Europe at the top of the Alps.

Sound like fun?