Rundown of December (pre-Christmas)

Book Group at Ali’s house on 1 December to discuss Quentin Letts’ The Speaker’s Wife. Started out with some prejudice given that Letts writes for the Daily Mail. Also, the blurb on the back refers to ‘an England which has neglected its beliefs’. Groan. Christians with a persecution complex are all I need. It was an enjoyable read if you abstract away from the irritating bits, including the ridiculously OTT depiction of the ‘celebrity atheist’, Dymock – he once drowned gerbils for God’s sake. And he’s ‘anti-love’ – as if that has anything to do with atheism. The book’s central character, the C of E vicar Tom Ross, is a well-drawn character – complex and flawed – but most of the others are pretty two-dimensional. Fun though and I was amused by the church of 'Alleluia! Jesus'.

Ruth and I drove out for a pre-Christmas visit to The Tree Barn at Christmas Common, which is mainly a Christmas tree growers but also has a shop selling posh and tasteful decorations - in fact we bought two baubles made out of star anise for about £8 each, which was a bit extravagant though they do smell nice. The shop was so crowded we could barely move around so we didn’t stay too long. Went on for a Welsh rarebit lunch at the Herb Farm at Sonning Common. Then called in at the Playhatch garden centre and bought a new artificial tree, as Ruth wanted a better specimen than the two little cheap ones I've used for years. The new tree is a slimline model as we don’t have much available width. Looked dead tasteful once it was decorated.

Went out for a joint Returns-ISA team (plus Harvey, the head of Planning & Forecasting) Christmas lunch on 12th December, that being the latest date available before various people disappeared off on leave. Had a pleasant lunch at Zizzi in the Hub. Hoa (on the left) looks particularly demob-happy, probably because he was about to depart on a pre-Christmas ski trip. I was nothing like as drunk as I look – I’d only had about half of a small glass of rosé.

Ruth and I went for a two-night pre-Christmas mini-break in Cardiff in mid-December, for no particular reason other than to look at twinkly lights and possibly buy a few festive trinkets. We stayed in the Park Plaza, as Ruth had stayed there for a week on a business trip a while back and thought I would like it. Indeed I did – it’s large, modern, luxe and impersonal, all the things I like in a hotel.

Our room was supposed to have a view of Cathays Park, but this was obscured by a Winder Wonderland extravaganza in between – not that we were in the room much during daylight hours anyway. Being not long before Christmas, the hotel’s lobby and bar were packed out with office parties on both the evenings we stayed, something I dimly hadn’t factored in beforehand. We did manage to book dinner in the restaurant for the second night and were reassured to note there were a few other couples dotted around among all the revelers. In fairness to the staff both the food and service were very good.

We caught a little one-carriage shuttle train from Queen Street down to Cardiff Bay, and had a walk out to the Barrage and back, and tea in the little Norwegian Church. It was a particularly lovely wintry day.

Looking out from the Barrage

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The Wales Millennium Centre

Visited the Senedd - when Mum and I went there in 2010 we had been able just to wander in through the main doors, but there was none of that on this occasion – Ruth and I were funnelled in through a security room where both us and our bags had to be scanned before we were allowed in. A bit OTT in my view but there you are.

We did a bit of wandering around shops and through the arcades, which were prettily swathed in twinkly lights. Ruth had her eyebrows threaded at Bollywood Eyebrows. We went into the market briefly. We had a nice lunch at Wahaca – a chain I’d never tried out before – and dinner on the first night at a quirky restaurant called The Meating Place, specializing in, unsurprisingly, meat. In fact some of the meat was served on skewers hanging from hooks in the ceiling. Primal.