Festive Fun Weekend
Dec. 11th, 2024 07:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crystalcazzieThe weekend before last I went up to London for our annual Festive Fun Weekend which involved Santa, Nutcrackers, Hever Castle, and nowhere near as much mulled wine as I thought it would...
I headed up on Thursday and we had Nando's for dinner, which I haven't had in years and was very nice.
Then on Friday Paul and I started the festivities by going to Petersham Nurseries, which was a bit disappointing. I was hoping for a Christmassy garden centre, but there wasn't a huge amount there.
We then walked along the river to Richmond:
As you can see, it was a lovely day. We had a look around the place and I really wanted to go to a nicely decorated pub. We ended up in The Prince's Head, which wasn't too busy but seemed to have more people in it than other places we'd walked past. We got a mulled wine each and I realised why the pub was so popular...
It's the pub from Ted Lasso! So that was a lovely bonus. I'm so pleased to be able to say I've had a drink in there now.
We wandered a bit more afterwards then found ourselves in another pub, this time we sat outside by the river:
I did not have a mulled wine this time.
After this we caught the bus back to Kingston:
Just in case we forgot where we were.
Kingston was doing a Nutcracker Trail where you got a map which gave the locations of various nutcrackers around the town that all had names. You filled the sheet in with the names and could enter it in a prize draw for a goodie basket. Also, if you were one of the first 300 you could get a special ornament from Waterstones. I wasn't too bothered about the prize draw but I wanted the ornament!
As we found each nutcracker we jokingly guessed what the name was going to be. Some of the names were rather out there so we didn't really have any expectations of being correct. As we approached the one by the station I was trying to think of train related names and guessed he'd be called George (after George Stephenson)...
THIS IS THE GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT OF MY LIFE! OR AT LEAST OF THIS WEEKEND!
Yes, his name was George. I didn't get any of the others correct, but I rode the high of this one for days afterwards.
The tree was pretty too:
We didn't stay until it was dark enough to really appreciate the lights, because we had to get to New Malden...
To see Santa!
Yes, this was the New Malden Christmas Lights switch on. It was quite cool the way they did it; the lights came on as he passed by in his sleigh.
There were also some stalls set up in the nearby square. I had a go on the tombola and won a bottle of tonic water. Not quite up to Wrecclesham Fete standards, but still good!
Lights!
That evening we had dinner at Pizza Express cos they had a special Festive Menu. I had Dough Balls in Blankets and the Christmas Feast pizza. Both very nice!
~
The next morning Jennie and I were up before Paul and went to a nearby cafe for breakfast. On the way back we ran into a really friendly cat:
The cat kept rubbing up against my legs and walking with us. A couple of ladies came up cos they saw us and thought we were taking our cat for a walk! Because I'm a natural worrier I was a bit concerned that the cat would follow us out of the park and onto the road, but he stayed back, which was a relief.
We then drove to Edenbridge, which is a lovely little town. They were setting up for some sort of Christmas street market and I wished we'd been just a bit later! But we did go to a very cool old Costa:
Where I had a Festive Spice Latte:
Delicious!
We then went to our main destination of the day, Hever Castle:
The Castle itself!
I remember those ducks!
Yes, as you may recall, Paul and I visited Hever Castle for my birthday trip a few years ago. But it was fun to go back and see it all done up for Christmas!
That Christmas tree wasn't there before!
Nor was this.
Inside, all the rooms were beautifully decorated for Christmas and I loved it. I took so many pictures!
Just outside the castle there was a carousel and a train ride. Paul's son loved the train ride so much he wanted to go on it again instead of coming inside the castle. So Jennie and I went in while Paul stayed outside with him.
I'm telling you this because...
There they are!
Now, back to the inside:
So nice of them to decorate the beheading sword!
One of my favourite decorations
Hello, there!
After we left the castle I had a quick run around the maze, finding my way to the centre quite quickly, then Paul went into the castle while Jennie and I stayed out with the little train rider.
It was good because we had a lovely view of the castle as the skies darkened and the light show started:
Also, apparently Tom Allen was in the castle while Paul was there.
We then walked around the lit up grounds and did the Space Walk, which was very pretty but didn't photograph that well so I didn't take many pictures. I did take plenty of other areas though:
I had hoped to have dinner in the nearby Henry VIII pub cos it was very pretty, but it was also pretty full so we went back to New Malden.
Harlem is also pretty!
~
We went back to Kingston the next morning:
We had breakfast at Megan's, where I had seasonal Biscoff Pancakes!
And a gingerbread latte.
We hung around long enough for Waterstones to open and me to get my ornament:
Yay!
So that was my Festive Fun weekend. Quite a lot of festive food and drink consumed but, if you have been counting correctly you'd have realised, only one mulled wine. And in an even more shocking turn of events, that's also been my only mulled wine so far this year. I had planned to have some at the Farnham Christmas Market last Sunday, which is also where I planned to buy loads of Christmas presents, but Storm Darragh put a stop to that and the market was cancelled. Alas.
