Back to reality...

We went back to work after the Christmas break last week, but this week it is definitely back to reality, with the kids back at school, my oldest sitting her mock GCSEs, and my husband preparing for a business trip to Australia.

I've therefore been reflecting on the some of the lovely things that we did over the holidays:

• spending new year's eve watching the Creation Theatre's production of "A Christmas Carol" (great fun!) followed by dinner at our local Wildwood Restaurant (very tasty!)
• having a lovely, family evening out at the cinema seeing "Pitch Perfect 3" (just as funny as the first two!)
• meeting friends for a walk up Boar's Hill followed by afternoon tea (great company and delicious homemade Christmas cake)
• enjoying lots of family time watching films, playing Scrabble and eating German Christmas biscuits.

We've also got some lovely things to look forward to. We've just booked our family summer holiday (11 nights in Montenegro, which looks beautiful), we'll be watching our oldest daughter playing Juliet in the school production of "Romeo and Juliet", we're booked in to see the play "Blood Brothers" in February, and much more.

That should be enough to get us through this dull and cold January!

Festive weekend

We have had a lovely, festive time this weekend.

On Saturday, we all (us, our children and their grandparents) met at the National Theatre to see Pinocchio. There had been some concern when the tickets were first booked that the show might be too young for our teenagers, but as it turned out, not a bit of it. The acting was superb, the set ingenious, and there was plenty tucked in for older viewers -- morality, darkness, sophisticated jokes, etc. We enjoyed the whole show, but we thought that the actress who played the cricket (Pinocchio's conscience) was particularly outstanding.

Prior to watching the play, we ate dinner together in House, the National Theatre's restaurant. We were a little concerned that there were few vegetarian dishes available and that the menu wasn't very teenager-friendly. However, I had a pasta dish with mushrooms and spinach, which really was very tasty, Even though the restaurant was very busy, the service was friendly and responsive.

On Sunday, we focused on Christmas at home. We bought our tree from Peachcroft Farm, as we always do, and then spent the rest of the morning decorating the house. In the afternoon, we celebrated the third Sunday of Advent enjoying German Christmas biscuits in front of our advent circle.

Lovely! We are now all feeling a lot more Christmassy!

The run up to Christmas

We are having a very busy run up to Christmas this year. We have had so much on -- both festive and otherwise -- that it feels a bit like we might hit Christmas somewhat unprepared!

The weekend before last we enjoyed our annual Christmas shopping trip to London. This involves traipsing along Oxford Street, admiring the lights, and spending inordinate amounts of time browsing the John Lewis food hall for Christmas stocking gifts. We also had a lovely lunch in Cafe Rouge Kingsway. This was a good find because, while relatively close to central London shopping, it is located in Holborn, which, at the weekend, is nice and quiet. Perfect for a hassle-free meal with family.

We're off to London again this Saturday to see Pinocchio at the National Theatre with my parents-in-law. We're all a bit old for it now -- the kids included -- but it should be great fun! Sunday will be dedicated to buying the Christmas tree from our local Peachcroft Farm and dressing the house ready for our celebrations.

This week I have two -- yes, two! -- Christmas lunches at work. One with my immediate team and one with my 50-strong department. The first will be a curry at a local curry house and the second will be a full-blown, three-course lunch at St. Hilda's College. Both should be delicious.

On the less exciting front, we have been organising the replacement of our leaking hot water tank (two days this week without heating or hot water in the freezing cold!), having the drains under our house cleaned, sorting out Duke of Edinburgh volunteering and braces for our youngest, supporting our eldest as she revises for her mocks. The list goes on...

Only two more weeks of work and then we'll be there! I'm really looking forward to the break and to enjoying our traditional German celebrations with family on Christmas Eve!

Couriers

It's the run up to Christmas and, for us, that means couriers delivering parcels. More specifically, it means couriers delivering parcels to our house when we're out. Instead of leaving the parcel with a neighbour when we're out, we find that the drivers more often than not just dump the parcel on our mat in plain view to anyone passing by. Not good.

However, we have had a couple of good experiences recently:

• UPS left a parcel with our local collection point, which was our local corner shop. We hadn't come across this before, but it turns out that UPS have local collection points where they will leave your parcel if you're not in. This means that they don't have to re-deliver, and the parcel is held somewhere safe until you pick it up. Perfect.

• But DPD go one step further. On the morning of delivery, we received an email giving us a one-hour time slot. We were told who our driver was (including a photo of him) and we could track his route as he made his journey towards us, which meant that eventually we knew the 15-minute time slot during which he would deliver to us. I had some reservations about what this meant for the driver (lack of autonomy, pressure to deliver exactly when expected, etc.) but in terms of customer service, it was great!

London weekend

We followed our usual annual tradition last weekend of visiting London to do a bit of Christmas shopping and to look at the lights. We wondered whether we might give this outing a miss this year, but the children were insistent...

We had a productive but very long and tiring day. It is astonishing how many people there are walking up and down Oxford Street at this time of year -- it's almost impossible to move, unless you employ the rather crafty tactic of heading down side streets and trekking along back streets, which we did.

Other things that I found surprising were:

• The length of the queues for the ladies' loos in John Lewis. We waited the best part of fifteen minutes to reach the front.
• The crowds of young women who seemed desperate to shop in Pink for underwear. My daughters love it, but I really can't see the attraction -- the clothing is definitely not my style.
• The fact that North Ealing tube station could be completely closed for the whole day due to a shortage of trains on the Piccadilly Line. I mean, is that an appropriate way to manage the capital's public transport system?!

On the plus side:

• We found a lovely cafe close to Oxford Street for lunch.The Everbean appeared to be independent, was tastefully decorated, had very friendly staff, and served unusual and delicious food (avocado on toast for us!).
• We enjoyed looking at the lights in Covent Garden, despite the huge crowds.
• We wound up at an ASK for supper. It was predictable, but pleasant, and we were able to pay using our Tesco vouchers (always a bonus!).

Back to life, back to reality

My family and I had a lovely Christmas break -- almost two weeks with no work and lots of time just to enjoy ourselves. But that seems plenty and, in some ways, almost too much. There's a danger with having a block of time off work -- that you find you don't want to go back. If you're in non-holiday mode, accustomed to the rhythm of work, then you don't really think about what you're doing, you just carry on as usual. But if you fall out of the habit, then it's hard to get back in to it. And the more you think about returning to it, the less appealing it becomes.

So, perversely, I feel rather relieved to be returning to work (even though I'm not looking forward to it much at all). After all, I know that it'll be much more enjoyable when I'm actually doing it!

There's something strangely surreal about holiday time. And there's something to be said for the routine and banality of  everyday working life.

Christmas Extravaganza -- a bit of a damp squib

Late yesterday afternoon, we went out en famille to see the Abingdon Christmas Extravaganza -- specifically, the fire show followed by the Christmas light switch on and fireworks.

We were particularly looking forward to the fire show.This was a new attraction last year and had been brilliant -- a very skilled guy who performed all sorts of acrobatics and antics with batons of fire.

We arrived early and managed to find a reasonable place standing up behind the few rows of benches that were set out for those who preferred to be seated. However, once the performance started, we found that we couldn't see a thing. People had pushed in front of us and stood blocking our view, while those people at the front who had benches, and so should have been sitting down, chose to stand up, thereby blocking everyone's view, In a desperate attempt to see something, we and the kids walked round to a point behind the stage and stood on the edge of the pavement so that we could peer through the gaps in the backdrop and at least get vague glimpses of fire. However, even here, an adult pushed in front of my oldest daughter, entirely blocking her view.

At this point, feeling very disappointed, we gave up and went in search of a warming hot chocolate from one of the nearby cafes, but unfortunately, the queues were so long there, that we simply decided to go home. We caught a glimpse of the fireworks on the way (which were good), but we didn't see the actual light switch on.

It's funny how sometimes the things that you are most looking forward to turn out to be the most disappointing, while something totally unexpected can be amazing. It's also sad that people can be so selfish. If people had behaved a little bit better, it would have been possible for everyone to have a good time and enjoy the fire show. As it was, those of us who weren't prepared to push and think only of ourselves lost out.

Christmas postage bankruptcy

There has been quite a bit in the news recently about Royal Mail and Amazon. Specifically, the complaint that by setting up its own parcel delivery service and so removing (some) of its custom from Royal Mail, Amazon is cherry picking the lucrative part of Royal Mail’s service, leaving Royal Mail with the much-less-lucrative rural delivery market.

I have been wrapping and sending off Christmas gifts and cards over the past few days. Last week, I took two parcels (one national and one international) and one card (international) to the Post Office. The total price for sending these three items was in excess of £40! I was astonished—the cost of delivery was almost more than the cost of the gifts themselves. My 2kg parcel to Southern Ireland cost over £26 (via so-called globaleconomy!!); my (almost) 3kg parcel to Scotland cost over £12; and my letter-sized card to Italy cost 90 pence. And the lady behind the counter assured me that this was via the cheapest services available. She was right—I checked online when I got home.

I am sure that Royal Mail would provide me with many reasons for the enormous cost of delivering my items. But the bottom line is that it is just too expensive for the consumer. I won’t be using Royal Mail to send my Christmas gifts next year because I can’t afford it! I will have to explore alternative options. And, yes, this may well include getting my gifts sent direct to my family by Amazon using, I assume, Amazon’s own parcel delivery service.

I don’t know anything about the ins and outs of parcel delivery and the associated cost to the delivery company. However, based on my personal experience, I can understand why Amazon has chosen to set up its own company rather than using Royal Mail. In the end, if there’s a much cheaper and equally reliable alternative, any sane person would take the cheaper option. And as for competition and cherry picking parts of the market...well, that’s how capitalism works. If someone can provide an equivalent service cheaper, then they are likely to gain custom. Similarly, if you are a privatised company, you can’t just expect to rely on people’s goodwill if you don’t provide them with value for money.

I wonder how Royal Mail survived prior to the advent and growth of Amazon? Not easily, if my memory serves me correctly, which, I suppose, is the problem.

Christmas in the city

We had a very productive Saturday in London last week. We decided to combine seeing the Christmas lights with progressing our Christmas shopping.

First off we visited Oxford Street and saw the lights there—globes strung high up in the sky. I imagine that they would have looked really impressive at night, as if they were free floating in the darkness. We spent a lot of time in good old John Lewis and managed to buy quite a few presents there. The Christmas foodie gift section just has so much lovely stuff—beautifully presented chocolates, sweets, biscuits, preserves...the list goes on. And the range and choice in the Oxford Street branch is amazing—such a revelation for those of us from the provinces! We also spent some time in New Look on Oxford Street—our daughter needed some new clothes and our local branch of this shop doesn't have the teenage range in store. We collapsed on a chair while she hummed and hawed about what she might buy. I hate clothes shopping and try to get in and out of clothes shops as quickly as possible. But not so my daughter.

Then it was off to Covent Garden. The festive trappings were pretty impressive there too—a huge silver reindeer dominated. We were aiming to see the real reindeer there as well, but didn't make it in time. I'm not sure we would have got a look in anyway—I imagine that a single reindeer in Covent Garden in the run up to Christmas would be besieged. We browsed the stalls in the market—lots of pretty things on offer—and spent a few minutes watching the opera singer who was busking in front of diners at one of the open-air restaurants. She was quite unusual—a fantastic classical singer, yet dressed in ripped jeans and T-shirt with brightly dyed hair. Not a combination that you see often.

We finished off the day by wandering around the boutique shops in Seven Dials, then had an early dinner at Prezzo on St Martin’s Lane before heading back home.

I love that we live close enough to the capital to visit for the day, but I am also very glad that we don’t reside there. It’s just too busy and polluted to tackle on an everyday basis.

A grand day out at the National

Last weekend we (my husband, myself and our kids) had a treat and were taken to see 'Emil and the Detectives' at the National Theatre by my parents in law.

The play was very good -- fairly low on plot complexity (which is what you'd expect from a children's story, I suppose), but extremely well directed. Lots of clever scenery, the inevitable chase through the audience, and a huge cast of children with excellent acting ability displayed by those in speaking parts.

After the play we were spoilt even further and taken to the Mezzanine Restaurant at the National. We had a lovely meal--the food there is always first class, especially the freshly baked bread--and the kids benefited from the new children's menu. They chose chicken and chips followed by ice cream, which suited them perfectly.

So, we all had rather a grand day out at the National!

To Amazon or not to Amazon?

Our family has had a busy run up to Christmas this year. Busier than usual. This has been down in large part to one of our elderly parents having been in hospital for the past several weeks. It looks likely that she'll remain there well into the new year. This means that we have been more preoccupied than usual, and also more occupied than usual, driving down to the South Coast regularly at weekends to visit (a four-hour round trip) and having long telephone conversations in a bid to be as supportive as we possibly can.

And this has been in addition to the usual mad round of activities that any family with children experiences at this time of year -- St. Nicholas Day celebrations, two carol services, one music concert, two sets of school discos, and several Christmas parties at the last count.

Between us, my husband and I have a fairly large assortment of relatives, all of whom require Christmas presents to be bought for them, which means that we usually spend most of our weekends in December (and even some in November!) Christmas shopping. But this year, given our frequent trips to the hospital, browsing at leisure in town really hasn't been an option. Hence my grand solution when I had a spare few minutes at the beginning of December: for once, let's just go on to Amazon and buy a gift off everyone's wishlist. And we did. Not very imaginative, granted, but at least it got the job done and ensured that none of our family would feel bereft this Christmas.

This happened just before the furore about Amazon and tax avoidance broke. And then I felt a little bit guilty. Should I really be supporting a company that makes massive profits yet still tries to avoid paying its fair share of taxes? In the end, I stopped worrying. This year was an unusual year for us, and I'm sure that next year we'll be back to browsing the local stores. But Amazon is so convenient in so many ways. Why can't they be ethical (or even just pay their taxes like the majority of us) as well?