Luica’s Blog

Christmas Dinner was great! We had turkey with gravy and confit, stuffing, roasted potatoes and vegetables. Everyone loved the chocolate pudding dessert.

As usual, we had crackers and we tried to answer the trivia and guess the jokes. It was also compulsory to wear the hat at dinner and I took some really fun pictures of Brad posing around with his lovely golden paper hat! (I will post those on Flickr later).

We may play some board games in a little while, which should be fun. We have a choice between Scrabble, Master Mind, Sorry!, Chess and even Manjong! I played chess the first time with Brad this afternoon and I won - neither of us were very familiar with the rules.

The weather forecast said we may have snow tomorrow, so there is still hope for a white Boxing Day. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

So we did not have a white Christmas, instead we had a sunny Christmas morning.

Brad and I woke up at about 10am and had a mocha and some toast before we sat down to open our presents with Mary & Alan. Brad opened his first silly present (a wind-up Mexican horse-rider) at midnight and had played with it all night.

I received a set of Candela lamps from Brad. I remembered that we saw them at the Guggenhein Museum in New York last July and I really liked them. Unfortunately, they came with a US charger, so we couldn’t get them. They were a wonderful present wrapped up in an eBoy gift wrap, which I kept! Mary & Alan got me The Travel Book published by Lonely Planet. It pretty much covers every country in the world with really amazing pictures. It must be a highly satisfaying job to take pictures for publications like Lonely Planet.

Brad had quite a few presents to open, including a Tumi electric adaptor and Japanese product design book from me; a Bill Bailey audio CD and a Leatherman tool from Mary & Alan and a wireless mouse from my mum. Alan received a whole wardrobe of smart shirts from us, my mum and Mary. We bought Mary a few little things such as a mirror and leather bookmark from Shanghai Tang, a picture with handmade prawns (made with dried grass) and some jasmin tea. Alan gave Mary a pen knife as well as a set of necklance and earrings. A fleece jacket was also sent for Mary from my mum.

We also got a lot of goodies from Mary & Alan including bottles of chocolate beer, honey, mango & orange soap and some other bits and pieces.

We had snacks for lunch and saved our stomachs for the delicious turkey dinner and chocolate dessert.

Monday at the Apple Market of Covent Garden was fun! It was antique market day and most stalls were selling expensive looking items including silver cutlery and hip flasks, antique and hand-made jewellery, as well as rare hardback novels.

Until 1973, the central Apple Market housed the largest fruit, vegetable and flower market in the city. It reminds me of the screen in My Fair Lady when Audrey Hepburn sings, …lots of chocolates for me to eat… (It is my mum’s all time favourite and I watched it over half a dozen of times before I turned 12!) Covent Garden Piazza was re-opened in 1980 and it is to be the capital’s biggest craft market.

Most stallholders are very friendly and do not seem to mind the endless questions from tourists. Some of them even posed for me while I was taking snapshots. I could not resist walking back to the stall that sells beautiful old hardbacks.

The first research trip for my London travel book. I thought I would start with something smaller in scale but fascinating. Piccadilly Market at St. James’s Churchyard on a Tuesday (antique market) was proved to be a perfect choice.

There are about 25 stalls, which are mostly run by friendly older people. The atmosphere is relaxed; no hassle from stallholders and very little bargaining. Yet, it is busy enough to make visitors feel comfortable and welcome to browse around.

One of the stalls I found sells Russian hand-made items such as Russian Dolls and leather bags. Another stall sells collectable cigarette cards and old postcards from all over the world. I tried to look for an old postcard of Hong Kong but the stallholder said they were really popular and she did not have anything in stock. Apparently, most of the postcards from that stall are from 1950’s or earlier. Favourite topics for collectors include cats, dogs and sports.

Visitors can also find clothes, accessories, jewellery, perfume bottles and silver cutlery.