Getting Downe

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the bloomin’ way! Christmas is coming and I’m v. excited…
We went to a Christmas tree farm this weekend! It was in the Kent countryside, a little village called Downe. The scenery on the drive was spectacular and there were still some lovely autumn colours on show. The farm was pretty cool. It had chickens, ducks and rheas. That’s not polari for a wig by the way, it’s actually birds from the ostrich family that look like, well, small ostriches. The one we saw tried to steal my tea.
There were (perhaps not surprisingly for a tree farm) Christmas trees everywhere and we choose quite a tall one with a fat bottom! It was green and lush and smelt lovely. They cover it in netting to make it a little easier to transport but the thing still weighed a ton and we had to put the seats down. We had wanted a live one (with roots) so we could replant it in the garden but the tree farmer told us that we would need to buy one quite small and keep it in a pot; because once uprooted, they struggle to survive.
On the way back through the village replete with a splendid tree, we stopped at the village hall because they were having a Christmas bazaar. We bought a chocolate cake and a few bits and pieces that we didn’t really need before heading back to the open road.
Sunday we pottered around, took the dog to a new park and in the evening, drank champagne and decorated the tree. It was our anniversary weekend – hence the champagne :0)

PS. Where are all the black cabs? After my course on Friday I went to join friends in Soho for some drinks. After which I looked around for a cab. There were none around Soho so I decided to walk down to Charing Cross and get the final train – it was cancelled. Thus ensued perhaps one of the most miserable evenings (in terms of trying to get home) that I have ever endured. I waited over an hour at Charing Cross in the taxi queue. There were NO cabs on the rank however; there were cabs around – they were just all pre-booked. I tried to call and book a cab, everyone was too busy. I decided to walk over to Waterloo. When I got to the station with my knees really, really sore by now, station staff were telling the very long taxi queue that they should try somewhere else; a taxi hadn’t been seen in ages and was unlikely to turn up now that the station was closed. I then had to walk down to Morley college (I’d seen taxis there earlier in the evening and figured there would be less competition) and eventually managed to flag down a taxi who REFUSED to take me all the way home because apparently the journey was too long and he “wanted to go home”. Eventually almost two and a half hours later I managed to get a black cab home. Were I a little less discerning I would have got into one of the three unmarked cars that stopped and offered me a lift. But obviously not being completely stupid I ignored them totally and thought even if I have to wait all bloody night, I’m getting into a licensed black cab.

Absolutely shocking though, a major world city cannot apparently deal with people wanting to go out and get home again on a Friday night. I was – and still am actually – incredibly angry about the whole thing.