Tues 20 Dec Although the day started out sunny and not too cold, the wind got up and it was bitterly cold until the late afternoon. We had decided to spend most of the day at the ‘Winter Wonderland’ in Hyde Park. It was an area of Christmas markets and theme park rides, as well as an ice skating rink, lots of food stalls (is this the world’s biggest frying pan?) and a circus. There was a talking donkey and a talking tree, both with very bad Christmas jokes. The boys went on a roller coaster which resembled a Pac Man circuit and Matthew and Michael went in a haunted house ride which folded out from a truck. It was quiet short considering the price.
Once we left the area and started to walk through Hyde Park which was unsheltered, it became really cold. Chris tried to feed the squirrels but they wouldn’t come up to him. He had more success with the ducks and pigeons. A crazy dog kept going in the freezing lake and then shaking all over passersby, right near a sign banning dogs from the water.
We walked down to the Albert memorial and the Albert Hall and then back to the markets for some waffles. Mine was hard like a biscuit but the others were OK. I had been looking forward to this since we saw the first Christmas markets in Paris. By then (2:30 pm) the markets were extremely crowded.
Since it was so cold we decided to go to Harrods. We saw most of it except the clothing/jewellery sections (3/4 of us weren’t interested). The window displays were about winter, rather than Christmas. We bought some pork pies for dinner and got back at 6 pm. It seemed much warmer than during the day.
