Christmas in Prague

Prague had always been on the list of places to go since we came over here. We looked at going last Christmas but at the time it made a lot of sense to stay in the UK. It was however something Paul wanted to do before he turned 30 so heading off for Christmas this year seemed like a very good idea.

There are two types of voyages in the world, holiday and travelling. Holidays to us are times where you stay more or less in the same place and take life very slowly, whereas travelling tends to have us in the types of accommodation where you will do anything to move on to the next spot.

Prague was definitely a holiday.

It’s a city that has well defined quarters (five of them…) and we decided that as we had the time we’d do one quarter each day.

The first day was the New Town. Here, but for a small memorial to a student protester, it was impossible to tell that in our lifetime this was a communist country as they had well and truly embraced western commerce. We got ourselves a bit lost in and out of all the side streets and we found several carp sellers. It would seem that once a year the streets fill with guys trying to wrestle the fish, and once caught they would receive a less than fatal dong to the head before being sold as a Christmas delicacy.



The second day consisted of the Little Quarter, a couple of churches and the Castle, oh and the first of many trips over the Charles Bridge, and about a million photos of it. This is a rather touristy bit of the town although that made it very easy to pause and have hot chocolate every time I got too cold to be outside.

We’d seen a lot of walking tours and decided to join a pub walk through the Old Town that night I thought that we’d get told a bit of history and pause between monuments for a local pils. Turned out it was meet at the meeting point and straight to the pub, then to the next for dinner and then to the next. It was still a good night; our guide was a 20 year old male student who, unsurprisingly, enjoyed his job and introduced us to a variety of drinks I would have never been brave enough to try (let alone had any idea how to pronounce).

As the previous night’s Old Town tour was not too detailed Paul and I headed back into the Old Town to look at the Christmas markets (including a lunch stop of BBQ pig, mmmm) before walking through the Jewish Quarter. We also did a little boat cruise. Christmas Eve dinner was in the hotel, and consisted of a lot of fish (which I found surprising for a landlocked country).

Santa managed to find us for Christmas so we were able to open some presents and enjoy lazy breakfast before heading out and about. There was a lot more open on Christmas day than eve, including the Communism Museum (which now classes as one of the stranger places I’ve been on Christmas day). We had Christmas dinner in the Little Quarter and I tried the Christmas carp - something that’s not going to become an annual fixture on my Christmas menu…

Having exhausted the five quarters we went to the park, and Paul made me climb up one of the viewing towers - the cold sweats were worth it though as the views were rather good.

Prague could defiantly be done in less time but it was good to be lazy, nap a bit and come home relaxed, rather than tired.

Pre - Christmas

Here are a couple of photos of Paul and I before we headed off for Christmas. Our little tree had grown quite nicely in a pot on the deck over the year and although it was sparsely decorated it did have the Christmas tiki up the top…

A weekend at home

In spite of there being very few daylight hours about at present London winter has not been too bad so far. It's 'warm' and at least I'm up in time for sunrise. This photo was taken late last week out of our window.




Saturday night it was time for my annual 21st celebrations. A few of the usual suspects joined Paul and I at our local curry house followed by a few pints at the local.

Sunday we made the most of the few sunshine hours and went to one of the nearby parks and stumbled upon a cafe for brunch. It's a place that I'll head back to I think. Coffee was rated about a 4/10 but the breakfast menu was full of interesting things, rather than just the full english breakfast.

At home in the dark I played with some new painting toys I got for my birthday...







The photo was taken in the Pyrenees on Brenda's birthday (probably while she was taking a million photos of poppies). I think I need to work on my perspective as my hills look really steep compared to the photo.

Finally, and this is an old one... I got a card from a dear friend from law school ages ago and I thought it would make a good bright painting (and now lives at L's house)

November photos

With the All Blacks on tour much of November was dedicated to rugby. We found that in spite of there being a million tv channels Murdoch & Co still had not caught on that some people over here may want to watch the ABs play France - but thankfully BBC Wales had the games on. Although the commentary was in welsh.

Long before Paul and I managed to get our Twickenham tickets through work Paul booked himself on a Beige Brigade bus tour to the Wales game. I decided that I really wasn't up to that so hung out with the girls for the day instead.



Amy doing Amber's nails


Girls on the world's shortest bubbly boat cruise


Paul, Andrew & Graham in Cardiff

Although it has been unseasonably warm (it is December 3 and I have yet to pull out the long wool coat) to walk about it certainly has the winter look to the place. This park is where I walk through most days and is a great way to see the seasons change. We had fields on daffodils in spring, lounging pink locals in summer, and now the bare(ish) trees.


The path through Highbury Fields

One of the things that I never thought I would get to see in London was a lot of wildlife. There is actually a lot about, you just need to know where to look. I am always fascinated by the little black mice and rats that live in the tube tracks (the mice are cute but the giant rats are plain gross). There are squirrels all over the show, especially in late summer autumn when they can hide their acorns (they really do!). The most unexpected in the city however does have to be the foxes. We have at least two local ones, one in the housing estate next door (who will ferret in our rubbish) and the other in the Fields - I was lucky enough to get a picture the other night as I happened to have my camera as I was walking through the Fields.


One of the local foxes