Jingle all the way...

Last post of 2005, as we still don't have a computer at home, and I'm off for the next 2 weeks. Huzzah! In no order, this is what I'll be doing:

reading the 15 or so books I bought/was given over the past year and haven't even opened
baking ginger and white chocolate cookies for Emerald's party
sewing curtains for our living room
watching films
drinking in the afternoon (let's be honest, in the morning too. As Steve and I are spending Christmas with our respective families, we're going to have a separate Christmas day, complete with champagne breakfast and presents)
painting the walls, hanging pictures
going to Ikea (urrrggh)
going wedding dress shopping with my recently engaged big sister
taking long walks in the parks near my house

Merry Christmas!

London’s a small city, despite the 8million people.

Over the summer I used to see a woman on my bus to work. She was very heavily pregnant, with glasses, long dark hair, always reading a book, and wore flip-flops. Today I saw her crossing the street with her partner, pushing a pram. Not sure why, but it made me happy.

Work Christmas party tonight, and although I want to go (free food, free booze, look at colleagues all dressed up and flirting), I also really want a night (OK, a week) at home reading and snoozing. Have decided to stay for a couple of hours (until the food runs out), then head home for an early night. Best of both worlds.

When I started writing this blog, over two years ago, there were over 20 bus routes in London served by Routemasters. Now there are none. My fondest memories are of the 15 (when I lived in Whitechapel I'd take this to work), and of the last route to go, the 159, which took me from Kennington to work, and took me and Steve to each other's houses. Feel like an ass cos I missed the last 159 today: I thought the last one was at midnight - in fact it was at noon. Very sad.

And even more...

More bus pics, if Blogger will cooperate...

It's really the end. As of tomorrow, the Routemaster will be no more. Sure, there are the crappy heritage routes, which don't go anywhere a Londoner would need to go, but the last real route, the 159, makes its last journey (from Marble Arch to Streatham, via Trafalgar Sq, Lambeth North, Kennington Oval and Brixton) just after midnight tomorrow. Judging by the crowds lining the route this afternoon, the final journey will see more people on the streets than Chas & Di's wedding. The 159 was my route when I lived in Kennington, and it may sounds stupid to have such fond memories of a bus, but I do. So today I rode from Oxford Street to my old stop in Kennington, then crossed the road and came back. Hundreds of people took photos of the buses. Not just bus enthusiasts, either: tourists, young people with cameraphones, kids, businessmen, police. I took photos, too: the quality's a bit crappy, as they were taken with a phone, but here they are.

You know those pics I allegedly posted last week? They never showed up, did they? Let's hope this works...

Yessss! Steve on Hungerford Bridge on a very cold and foggy Sunday in November.

And me and T ice-skating!

If only I could make the pics go in order it would be perfect...