Not a wasted minute - until...

This was written on the train home from almost a week in London, jam-packed with visits and music and enjoying the city; a northbound train which - after sitting for over an hour in a cutting in North Finchley with a brake problem and, to add insult to injury, no internet connection - was declared a failed train and then, ten minutes later, declared unfailed. So we headed north again, at some speed, but still very flaky internet. Which is why I managed to put together but not post this very compressed account of our time away:

• There was a morning of shopping with Bears, at which we were introduced to the free bookshop (this is new to me, but later we visited their shop in Basildon; it's probably just as well there isn't one nearer home than Darlington) and the Theatre of Wine, whose selection started in the upper reaches of my budget and went on up and up - but I scored a very enjoyable bottle of Côtes de Gascogne (a tannat syrah blend called Aramis, which research suggests is related to the Château d'Aydie that D., brings us, and the Wine Society may have some, but their listing isn't quite conclusive) and splurged on something special for Christmas dinner (Bonny Doon - how could I resist?).


• We visited Culpeper Community Garden to talk to them about their website, had a quick look round the gardens in the rainy twilight and discovered that the treasurer had known my mother.


• helenraven took us for a walk past the Cutty Sark, through the foot tunnel (where we survived a stampede of ravening Santas - I beg their pardon, Santae), through Mudchute Park and its farm (llamas! and goats! and sheep with strange round wooly faces!), into Docklands and lunch at the steak and oyster bar at Waitrose. After which durham_rambler and I fitted in a little extra shopping on our way home.


• We took YoungerNiece out to lunch at El Molino, a tapas restaurant where we used to go with my mother, who loved it because they made a fuss over her. The tapas were good too, and we had salt-cod croquettes and a huge pile of olives and cava and gossip and many other tasty things.


• After which, it was time to get ready for the Carol Evening. It's the same every year, and every year is different. This year we had a bonus small dog who fell in love with the doormat, which had been placed over a trailing flex to prevent people falling over it. Amazingly, no-one fell over the dog. Half the wine which had been purchased for the mulled wine was low-alcohol; GirlBear swears this was inadvertent, but it worked well, producing a very fruity mix. Can this be why the singers were unusually well behaved, coming in promptly when the musicians started each carol? We were diverted by a debate over the proper speed at which to take Past three o' clock: A. felt it should be faster, and we tried it, but the Master of the House ruled in favour of the traditional, more measured tempo. We restricted ourselves to two versions of While shepherds..., Sweet Bells and Cranbrook. And when, at the end, after we had demanded figgy pudding (with menaces), Syd asked why we hadn't sung I saw three ships, there was still time for us to sing it.


• On Monday, we went to Essex to visit durham_rambler's family; much chat and catching up with busy people, so it was rather a sequential visit, lunch at one household then off to see the great-nephews when they got home from school, and covering the gap between their mother's evening out with the girls and their father's return from work. I got to talk comics with elder great-nephew (age ten) and do a little light homework with younger. Then dinner with our own generation, and Only Connect.


• Yesterday I wrapped a number of presents and we all trouped off to Kentish Town to the post office, lunch at the Phoenicia café - highly recommended, as is the supermarket to which it is attached. I may have bought jars of mulberry molasses and other interesting stuff. But the straw that broke the camel's back (or the suitcase's zip, though it didn't, because I know better) was the Oxfam bookshop which had tempting boks at equally tempting prices (which I thought was contrary to Oxfam policy). We have left books in London, for collection at a later date.


• For our last evening we all - us and the Bears - went to C# House for a Musicians' Benevolent Fund Benefit: the Carrivick Sisters were impressive instrumentalists and singers, and if some of their material was weak, I liked their song about today being a good day; James Yorkston was - well, let's say not to my taste and leave it there; but Carthy and Swarbrick were more than worth the price of admission. From the first moment (Sovay) to the last (My Heart is in New South Wales - would have been Byker Hill, but we demanded an encore) it was joyful

By the time I'd completed this list we were entering Darlington. Time to stop and to prepare to face home life and everything we had shelved while we were off enjoying ourselves.