I wound down / ground to a halt towards the end of last term, and the closest I came to knitting was practising sutures on a little sponge! (We started surgery three weeks before the end of term, and I hated it. It's growing on me though, as I guess anything does when you settle in and start to make something your own - and of course the more I learn, the more I want to know, and it gets better). The day after term finished, Deri and I took the 7:20 a.m. Eurostar to Paris! Exciting, non? It was my parents' Christmas present to us (thanks padres!) and we ate lots, drank more, walked miles, went to the Musée d'Orsay, to the Mystery and Glitter exhibition (I loved Jozsef Rippl-Ronai's Un parc dans la nuit and William Degouve de Nuncques' Night in the Royal Park of Brussels), to the Pompidou, to night-time concerts in churches and to see the Sonia Rykiel retrospective at the Musée des Arts décoratifs, but not to the Picasso because we couldn't get tickets. We stayed here, which I would highly recommend (and go back to in the blink of an eye!).
I didn't take any pictures, I think I was too exhausted. In fact the only photographic evidence I have is...
I know, poor socks. One day of tramping around and suddenly, I fear they may be beyond mending. What do you think? I did say I was going to wear them until I wore them out, but I didn't think it would happen so quickly! I've probably only worn them about five times.
Christmas at home with my family was full of most of the things I love about Christmas (the only things missing were not having gone home in time to make the Christmas pudding, or made any pomanders): listening to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on the radio while making bread- and apple sauce and red cabbage on Christmas eve, visiting my granny, ransacking my parents' stack of newspapers on the way to the recycling and spreading them all over the dining room floor to read in as higgledy-piggledy fashion as I'd like, going to Christ Church for Sung Matins (yes, I am a godless heathen, but Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without, well Christmas), seeing old and much-missed friends on boxing day and going for frosty walks.
The much-bigger-than-intended-tree-bought-from-the-Sea Scouts, when I went downstairs on Christmas morning. Those lumpen stripy sausage things are our stockings. My mum used to wear them!
After Christmas I went to the Lake District with my parents for a few days, then caught a train back to London to spend New Year's eve cooking, drinking champagne, gossiping, and tucked up on the sofa watching Rome on DVD with one of my oldest friends, who was just a few days from the start of her first job as a Classics teacher. All in all, a very good holiday indeed.
Then back to university, and looming exams - and suddenly they are over, and I did OK, and am looking forward to the weekend, which should include darning in the ends of this scarf, going to watch some rowing, and making this soup.
Hope your weekend has some good things in store, too.
7 comments:
That is very sad about your socks ... at least they were worn out in a good cause. Sounds like your year ended on a good note -- I hope the new one is treating you well!
Oh no! Poor dead socks!
Paris sounds wonderful, I haven't been in ages and I've just realised quite how sad that is.
xx
my walking boots (and only my walking boots) *kill* my handmade socks. It is really most distressing. To protect them, I have had to revert back to the apparently indestructible 'smartwool'. groan.
Hey girlie! Good to hear that you came out on the other side of the holdiays AND exams ok! I'm sure you did fabulously. And hooray for parents who give trips to Paris, eh?
I should mention that I made the thrifty soup a while back. I think I may have over-lemoned it, as it tasted a lot like hot vegetable lemonade. But it was strangely good. And I've never had a brussel's sprout before...so hooray for broadening horizons!
And how hillarious is the name "limbs and things?" Ack!
Hope you're staying warm! Hi to Deri too!
Oh dear, now I am dreaming of Paris...
what a beautiful series of holiday happenings.
i've seen videos of darning where holes as large as those were mended, but even if not, those socks will always have the glorious memories of Paris.
Oh No!!!! The sock carnage! I hope you were able to mend them.
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