Angel Jem's City Cottage

Last Saturday (Saturday last, to be formal) I attended the Lord Mayor's Parade. Don't get excited. I wasn't like a formal guest or anything, it was just that Peter had his course for becoming a Notary Public on in London and I was going with him to share the driving and freeload, and it was on. I've watched the Lord Mayor's Parade on TV since I was little. It used to be one of my favourite moments of the year, a little like Children In Need it was a signpost that Christmas was coming because... duh.. November leads to December. So it has always had positive associations for me. I didn't look to see if it was on TV this year. It always used to be, cutting Swap Shop or Saturday Morning Superstore short, and cutting to endless shots of drizzling weather and crowds who waved flags and shouted (posh Londoners) Huzzah! And the parade of floats and bands and people walking along. I love pageantry and pomp and circumstance, so when I knew it was on the Saturd...

Bet you never thought I'd make it this week and on a Wednesday? True enough, my Hygge job is taking off. We have a Facebook group, The Hygge Nook , of around 192 members that keeps me busy finding the bits & bobs to post and administering the applications. It's a lovely place, very hyggelig, full of positive and happiness. Just the post-Trump comfort we need. And physical work is fun as well. I write this at my desk, as Mr AJ is out to see a client and the phone lies silent for the moment. I'm enjoying being an Office Ninja, but I have to say I miss my time at home. I don't get a chance just to sit and be. And I was always a great human just being. Then the Big Festival is rearing its head. I am simultaneously full of anticipation and horror at the closeness. Anticipation because I know it will soon be here!!!! (39 days as I write) and horror because my to do list is a page and a half (no, make that two pages long) and my bank balance  is probably not going to...

This weekend Mr Angel Jem (OK, Peter of Peter Kneale Solicitor . Let's not pretend anymore) had a day's training to do in London of all places. Would I like to go to? It would mean I was all alone.... in London... all Saturday. Would I like to go???? I don't think I have said YES!! quite as quickly or enthusiastically as since he proposed, and I'm ashamed to say I may have been a little more emphatic about it. I was absolutely happy about the idea of a day alone in London anyway since my little jaunt for The Chase last June which I very naughtily never blogged about! I was quite happy with the idea of just sauntering around and watching the world when I found out that The Handmade Fair was on just the weekend I was there. I like Kirstie Allsopp anyway. Her programmes are fun to watch, and what she can do with a junk pile is nobody's business. I signed up, dressed up and went. On the advice of my husband, I wore a summer dress. Big mistake. Although on the...

Yesterday we went for a rare family day out. We are buried deep in revision and pain at school at the moment, so grabbing a glorious sunny day and escaping seemed like a good idea. We decided (ok, I decided) that we would go and look at a city I have often gone past but never into. We went to Lancaster; if you travel north on the M6 you very often pass the University, but it's not a place I remember going to. We didn't see that much yesterday, either, as we had plans for the afternoon. We did go up to the castle, which was a prison for many years. I couldn't resist getting the lads to stand under the sign! And the guy at the gate in the photo above is a prison guard... really! The Pendle witch trials were held here, and other famous trials. There is a castle tour, but we were on a mission and didn't feel like it yesterday. Fortunately Peter's football team play in Lancaster during the season, so I am on a promise. WE'd gone specially to see the ...

Mind you, the holiday ended with a good day, because we got to visit a shrine, a bookshop and a library. The Princess was a bit blasted by it, but my bookophilic son and husband soaked it all up. In order, then; North Gower Street; It's where they film the new Sherlock. Look! That's Speedy's Cafe! 221b Baker Street For Son number 1; he rounded off his perfect holiday with Sherlock Holmes as well. We visited the Sherlock Holmes Museum . You buy tickets, you queue, you go in to a small 4 story building where there are rooms decorated in the style of Holmes and Watson.  Pipes, slippers, gunshots in the wall, it's all here, with a load of dodgy figures that look like C&A had a closing down sale next door and they picked up the mannequins. Moriarty looking shifty, the Hound looking distinctly flea bitten and in the middle of it all a very happy looking teenager complete with deerstalker and smile. He enjoyed the shop afterwards, spending his...

The Princess has to have a shopping day in London. Must have, for her sanity after a load of museums. The last two times we went, we had to travel to Highbury in North London to visit the charming and beautiful Sylvanian Families shop. Alas, my daughter's days as a toy-playing child are behind her so this year was a rather more prosaic planned excursion to Lush, Claire's and Superdrug. When we shop, we shop in style! Alas, my money had deserted me in droves the day before, so my cash was spent on a rather tasty cake and cocoa on the Portobello Road, a Duck Banquet on Gerard Street and mid afternoon drinks as we met the gang in Covent Garden. I'll let the pictures do the talking again.

Wednesday was a brief break from London city centre itself. We headed off to the Warner Bros Studio Tour The making of Harry Potter;  it was the most expensive day out we had, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime-probably experience, so it was money well spent. And the whole day is a really magical experience if you're a Potter fan. From Privet Drive, to Hogwarts Castle, from the creature shop to the souvenir shop the day is a brilliant and enjoyable time for a fan. We spent ages wandering around gasping and calling each other over, we queued for the broomstick ride, we sat on the Express as the Dementors flew past and we spent ages just staring at the details on the scale model of Hogwarts. We wanted to watch the films one after another after the end; too bad we were at a holiday house and had left them at home. Bad Dobby. Bad Dobby. We shall have a marathon session this summer one day. Anyway, it is a place best experienced in pictures and music, not words, so I shall let my little...

It's as far East as I have ever been in London, and takes a while to get there, but it is a good place to visit. It's old, for one thing, been attacked by Dark Elves and lived to tell the tale for another and, on a warm sunny day in April has enough large park teeming with history to keep anybody happy. Greenwich . It is a really beautiful place, a  maritime town on the banks of the Thames, and full of beautiful buildings. With a history stretching from Tudor times when Henry VIII was born there and left Anne Boleyn there (until taking her to the Tower and a short break) through Napoleonic Naval battle school to the present day. it is an iconic sight.  At the top of Greenwich Hill you get a real vista out over the east side of London. And the Naval College (which is a university now) has a fantastic (and free to enter) painted Hall. We stood craning our necks and looking at all the different mythological Gods and Goddesses. We've paid to enter places that didn...