Yuletide (Lol)Cat

CHRISTMAS IZ GUD 4 BEAN WARM IN FRUNT OV TEH FIRE

Happy Christmas

We are without any extended family and friends for the first time this year, but the table is laid for just the four of us for Christmas Eve dinner, the presents are under the tree, the fires are lit and snow is all around.

London Christmas shopping

In contrast to Paris, London's christmas windows are altogether more quirky and eccentric. Fantasy seems to be the motif this year ...

For instance, Liberty's windows are weirdly Wonderland themed, a kaleidoscope of colour  ...

(Flowers at the entrance to Liberty)

... and Carnaby Street is transformed into an array of colourful planets ...

 

 Spaceman Santa descends from the rooftops, while musicians blast carols beneath pink and orange planets ...                           

 

... the colour scheme echoed in shop windows. 

St James' church on Picadilly glows eerily behind suspended lanterns

on the way to Fortnums, where the windows are more traditional, and richly opulent ...

 

the street outside reflected in this silver ball

(side entrance to Fortnum & Mason)

Bond Street defies the recession with nouveau riche style ...

  

... Cartier wrapped up in a giant red bow

  

 All she wants for Christmas is a Chopard diamond necklace to go with that fur ...

Christmas window-shopping in Paris

As travel is sadly out of the question this Christmas, I have been consoling myself with a little window shopping via my photos of last Christmas/New Year in Paris.

Windows surely don't come more stylish than this. It strikes me now that the themes were red, white and gold everywhere you looked.

(the wonderful Astier de Villate on rue Saint-Honoré)

(restaurant window, above and below, on Ile St Louis)

 

and finally, what the well-dressed Parisian dog was wearing last winter ...

Birthday Babe

 Styling big sister's hair, Cape Town 1998

Water baby, 2003

 10th birthday, Cape Town 2006

Ice Princess, Stockholm, 2007

 Gondola girl, Venice 2007

Speed queen, Kefalonia 2008

London 2010

 Happy 14th birthday, Bella!

Snowbound; goodbye Vienna

Wild flurries of this ...

 

 all of Friday and Saturday 

have led to a large dumping of snow

that has caused travel chaos (various members of our family this weekend have been gridlocked on the M4, stuck twice in thick snow on smaller roads, helped several other people dig their cars out of similar predicaments, and had trains and tubes delayed, diverted and/or cancelled)

 

But worst of all, as Heathrow and Gatwick shut down, our holiday plans have turned to snowdust. At this moment we should be in Vienna, sipping gluhwein at a Christmas market under the spires of Stephansdom, dreaming of coffee and pastries at an elegant Viennese cafe in the morning ... I could weep with frustration. 

All alternative options have been tried and failed. Meanwhile we trudged to the store for provisions à pied, since nobody had the will to either dig out the car or attempt the hazardous drive ...

(images of the gulag?: inmates struggle to the supply store under leaden skies)

and some disconsolately made snow angels in an effort to cheer up

(child lies frozen to the wasted ground)

 

Yes, I know this is trivial and middle class as misfortunes go, and no doubt I will recover my Christmas spirit at some point, but for the meantime I need to rail loudly at  British  inadequacy in dealing with standard winter weather conditions, and  then perhaps take myself off with a glass or three of my current favourite Portuguese red (Crasto, Douro 2008) and the new book I've been wanting to start (the latest Le Carré) and have a bloody good sulk.