Scenes from London's Recent "Blizzard"

A few scenic shots from our recent snowfall (December 18/19).

An English Christmas Tradition

Today was a big day for Crumpet and me: we both experienced our first pantomime, which is a Christmas tradition here in England. I won't bother explaining the conventions -- or intricacies, really -- of a traditional pantomime because Wikipedia does it pretty well, but I will say that the Wyllyotts Theatre in Potters Bar put on a very good performance of Sleeping Beauty. Having never even taken Crumpet to the cinema before, I was a bit worried about how she would react and figured I'd be lucky if we made it to the interval. But, despite her fidgeting, we managed to see the whole show, and it obviously had an effect on her because she keeps repeating phrases from the show.

It felt like an official "kick-off" to the festive season and served as a much-needed period of comic relief following a difficult month. Without going into too many personal details, which I vowed I would not do when I started this blog, The Other Half lost his father quite unexpectedly last month. There is never a "good" time to lose someone close to you, but, of course, being so close to the holidays makes it even more difficult.

So, as you would expect, the blog has been the last thing on my mind lately. But I am really hoping to get back to regular writing in the new year.