Post Comment Love 17-19 December

Welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked and share some of that love. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here this week we’re pleased you’re here.

This is the last link up of the year, we’ll be back on 7 January.

Thank you for joining us this year, we really appreciate having you sharing your posts and commenting on others that have linked up too. Both Suzanne and I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and we very much hope you will be back to join us in January.

This week my photo is of the fatsia which is in flower in our garden. One of these days I’ll use one of the many pictures I have of this as a Christmas card - it’s not this year though!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Papped in the City

One of our festive traditions is to treat ourselves to a steak night in the run up to Christmas. I think it probably started as a reward for Christmas shopping, starting most probably, not completing it. But over the years the shopping part has been dropped and the steak is the focus. Last year we managed to fit in a visit to the Hawksmoor at Borough, walking from Fortnum & Masons in Piccadilly, mostly to avoid the tube and because it had been such a long while since we’d been into London.

This year though we were headed towards the City of London, so I thought our Fortnum & Masons luxury mince pies (another festive tradition of ours) might not be on this year. Then I learnt that they had a shop in the Royal Exchange, you don’t know how happy that made me. And so with my mince pies ordered for click and collect to coincide with our steak night, I was happy. The mince pies are divine, expensive, but divine.

What I wasn’t expecting was to be papped by Gillie & Marc’s Paparazzi Dogs at the entrance to the Royal Exchange, but I was so glad we were.

They definitely made me smile.

Mince pies, paparazzi dogs and steak - it was shaping up to be a very good night.

It’s the first time that the dogs have been in the UK, I’d like to think they knew I was coming - but that’s not true at all.

On the Royal Exchange website, they explain more about their temporary exhibit:

Designed to highlight the pack mentality of the media, the four Paparazzi Dogs have been travelling the world from New York’s Rockefeller Center to Melbourne’s Federation Square, Shanghai’s Jing’an Sculpture Park and Dublin’s Dundrum Town Centre, before arriving at The Royal Exchange to turn their lens on Londoners in a piece of public art that gives us all a taste of the glare of celebrity living

As well as the dogs, the mince pies and the nibbles to try in the store both the exterior (top) and interior (below) never fail to impress. For many years I worked opposite this building, and for many of those years had never been in until it was transformed into a posh shop mall - and even then, mostly just to look.

Our next stop was a favourite City pub - The Counting House on Cornhill - where both MOH and I have spent many evenings, with many colleagues. We were apprehensive about how busy it would be, and our tolerance levels for what we remembered being one of the busiest pubs where often it could take tens of minutes to make your way from the front of the pub to the back.

Reassuringly for us, less so for the publicans I’m sure, it was by comparison empty. There were people there, and we found a table to sit relatively easily - of course this was much to MOH’s horror, as he’s not a sitting down in pubs kind of person. But as I am, he did. It was still as beautiful as we remembered, and enhanced by the Christmas decorations.

After an aperitif or two, we along with our box of mince pies headed towards our steak restaurant - Blacklock just off Fenchurch Street. We’d been here before and in my usual style, I have no in-restaurant photos. We took the scenic route through Leadenhall Market to the restaurant, and this chandelier - in a coffee bar of all places - caught my eye.

Do you think it’s large enough?

Ah, Leadenhall Market always looks so good at Christmas, and while it’s the emptiest I think I’ve ever photographed it, it was good to see that some things don’t change. Let’s hope that the pandemic doesn’t completely silence places like this, that we know and love, but can’t always visit as much as we have in the past.

My garden in November

We’d been putting off collecting the leaves, but on a dry and blue skied day we could put it off no more. We knew it wouldn’t be the only time we’d be collecting leaves, we have a lot of trees and have lived here long enough to know it’s a thankless task. But I’m not sure we’ve left it quite this long before, though from my vantage point on the stone circle it really did look like the leaves were taking over.

MOH and I are a good team in the garden - he started to tackle the leaves, by mowing the ones on the grass and it wasn’t too long before the grass started to re-emerge. Picking up leaves isn’t one of my favourite gardening tasks, but as you can see not doing it really isn’t an option. I have to remember how much leaf mulch we’ll have in years to come.

While MOH tackled that I set about putting the garden furniture away. Usually that goes under cover on the patio nearest the house, but as there’s a chance that MOH will be working on the patio (chipping out the pointing) at some point in the early spring if we’re lucky with the weather. I decided to relocate the garden furniture storage this winter. The stone circle has already been repointed and so it seemed a more natural option.

By the time I’d lugged the wooden table and chairs up the length of the garden - dodging the lawnmower - and then getting them stacked as I wanted, there was much more grass making an appearance. I also got to cover the pizza oven and while MOH was starting to feel pleased with his efforts, we both knew that there was more to do.

These at the back of the garden was just the start. But collecting leaves is hard work, and pretty dull work too. I was starting to hatch another plan.

And while I was doing that I took some time out to snap the agapanthus and the fatsia, which were both looking good even if the agapanthus were just showing their structure rather than any flowers.

And my alternative plan? Here it is - sweeping them all into a corner for the time being! I’m hoping they’re still mostly there.

And as we finished, of course there were more leaves falling. This one I’m sure was just taunting us.