Results matching “Christmas”

The cold months are now upon us as the summer comes to an end and pumpkin-spiced everything and Halloween decorations are available in shops and cafes. A couple of my good friends got engaged a few weeks ago, so I hit the shops to pick up a card and a couple of gifts. While I was out, I visited The Body Shop to see the seasonal offerings, sale items, and ideas for a potential gift. I am a little bit of a hoarder with bath and body products, and I did find a few nice items for gifts and items for myself.

First up is body lotion in "Vineyard Peach". (I would have expected this to say "Orchard Peach" because peach trees grow in orchards.) Having grown up on a farm with an orchard, I must say that there's almost nothing in life better than a fresh, juicy peach. This reminds me of fresh peaches and is divine.

Second up is "Vanilla Pumpkin" hand cream, a new autumn range. The product smells of vanilla but with a pumpkin-autumn twist to the scent. I think that those who love the vanilla scent will love this one.

"Spiced Apple" was a range on offer last Christmas. It follows from the "Glazed Apple" range, which was popular a couple of years ago. This range is more of a grown-up Christmas scent when compared with the sickly-sweet "Glazed Apple" version, which I loved. I also love "Spiced Apple", which reminds me of Christmas.

As you may have read from my previous post, I did not travel far for Easter this year. On Easter Sunday, I walked to Duck Pond Markets north of Ruislip High Street and where the Old Barn and Manor House (Ruislip Castle) is located. I visited Duck Pond Markets for the first time right before Christmas soon after I moved to the area. Duck Pond Markets offers an alternating artisan market and a food market every other Sunday in Ruislip, and vendors for the market can travel to other locations on the other weeks. 

Before arriving at the market, I have to walk up Ruislip High Street. Most shops were shut, but I did notice that a few coffee shops and cafes were open. One of them, Fields, is new to Ruislip High Street. I decided to pop in and had a hot chocolate and a croissant.

Duck Pond Markets and the Old Barn/Manor House is located at the top of Ruislip High Street, and the lower end of Ruislip High Street is where the Ruislip tube station (Metropolitan line) is located. The walk to Duck Pond Markets is nearly ten minutes from there. The Manor House is clearly visible once entering the area, and it is a museum and open free to the public. It's worth a visit.

Information panels are located around the Old Barn and Manor House area to inform about the history of the location and the site of the castle. There's also a panel for the duck pond, which was where the work horses would be washed after a day of working.

The Old Barn is a listed building and beautiful inside. Part of the market takes place here. As the day was Easter Sunday, the market was less busy with vendors and people, but there were still many gifts and other items on display. 

Outside were a few vendors selling food items. These ranged from gluten and vegan baked goods, cheese, meat, treats for dogs, pies, honey, chutney and sauces, bread, sweets, cooked food, and coffee.

Inside the barn, children can play with the large selection of Lego; the table is filled with Lego. The Lego belongs to the son of the organiser of Ruislip's Duck Pond Market. Money can be donated, and he spends it on more Lego.

After wandering around the market, I headed outdoors to wait for the beginning of the Easter Egg Hunt, which was held in the grounds of the Manor House (called "The Orchard" although many of the trees are not fruit trees). The hunt started at 11:00, and the children were encouraged to dress up like bunnies or with fairy wings. The Easter Egg Hunt was held in conjunction with the organiser of the Ruislip Fairy Village. I will be covering this in another post, but many small doors for the fairies' houses are put up at the bases of the trees, and the fairies leave little gifts for the children. Unfortunately, someone keeps damaging the fairy village, and it was only re-instated on Easter morning. I do hope that the vandals leave it alone now. In addition to the easter egg hunt, the children could participate in a quiz. The Easter Egg Hunt attracted a huge crowd.

When it was time to begin, the children ran for it. The eggs were hidden very well!

The weather was quite nice with spells of sunshine, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. I even helped the children to spot some eggs with my keen eye; some of the smaller eggs had been well-hidden in the grass, and my height was an advantage. A couple of the children I had helped had not found any of the eggs yet, so it was appreciated.

After the egg hunt, an Easter bonnet contest and parade was due to be held back at the Old Barn. I did not go to see it, but I did see a few of the Easter bonnets, and they looked very creative. My personal favourite one (that I saw) was a tall green one that was decorated like Super Mario Brothers. Okay, it is not as Easter-y as some of them, but I thought that it was creative. 

London-based street artist Otto Schade (who originally hails from Chile) is one of London's busiest street artists. He normally paints two styles of street art: a round silhouette style with orange/yellow or purple background with a social or political message or an object/design created with a three-dimensional ribbon design. Before Christmas, the following social/political message popped up off Shoreditch High Street.

The mural, "peace and love on the streets" features two children on either side of a Christmas tree. The children are in innocence, holding toys behind their back. The Christmas tree, however, is made out of guns, grenades and ammunition. The words "Love" and "Peace" are stenciled in the background of the piece.

Previous work by Otto Schade are included in the below posts:

Street Artist Otto Schade Paints Southampton 'Zany Zebra' for Charity (and other work)
Street Art Round-up: Spring & Summer 2015
Otto Schade's New Street Art (Meerkats, Portraits, & More) in East London
New Street Art from Horror Crew, Swoon, Otto Schade, HIN, and others
Street Art: Otto Schade

A new store dedicated to the famous toy brick, Lego, has opened in Leicester Square at the end of November last year. The shop was in the process of being constructed for at least the last couple of years. The lines/queues to enter the store were very long as it was busy, but I had a look at the new store a couple of weeks ago when I took a day off during the week. The Leicester Square Lego store is the largest Lego store and features several large-scale Lego models. In addition to these, it includes a Mosaic Maker that turns your image into Lego and includes printed instructions and the bricks to re-create it. The full-sized Lego models include Big Ben, telephone boxes, post boxes, map of London, a tube map, and a London tube. The tube is the largest structure in the shop and took over 637,903 bricks. Inside the tube carriage, visitors can sit next to other famous London-based celebrities, such as Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare, and a Royal Guard.

The Lego store opens just in time for the holidays, which is just right around the corner from Covent Garden. Covent Garden often puts a display of Lego on during the season, and it was a little late this year. Last year, a steam train was the focus. Previous years of Christmas-themed sculptures built using Lego in Covent Garden included Santa and his reindeer, a large snowglobe filled with London monuments made from Lego that visitors could walk through and a large Lego advent calendar which was opened daily to reveal a new surprise.  

The Lego store in Leicester Square is open daily from 10:00am to 10:00pm, except on Sundays when it is open from 12:00pm to 6:00pm. It is located in the same area as a lot of similar shops dedicated to tourism trade, including the M&M store and the Nickelodeon shop. 

I had such high hopes for 2016. I really did. At the end of it, I feel a bitter disappointment for the year that could have been and that nearly was a great year. It was very nearly the best year in a while. Let's go back to the beginning. The year 2016 started with uncertainty from the previous year as my contract came to an end. Soon after New Year's Day, the pieces started to fall together so well. I received my next role quickly and loved it as it allowed me to use a mixture of my skills to create an awesome application; I was working with some really good people too. Unfortunately, the uncontrollable Fates started to sprinkle their farts (which I will call the nasty people, politicians, etc.) around from the middle of the year. In the end, 2016 really turned out to be a stinker. It started out with a lost purpose, but that quickly turned into an awesome party, and that ended in a bad hangover with too many difficult people (though I'd like to call them something else) leaving a big stink and spoiling the great that there was. The end of the year saw some positivity and fresher air, but it was too little too late to redeem itself.  

I will cut to the chase now and and review the year.

January: On New Year's Day, the bloke and I went on The Seven Noses of Soho on New Year's Day walk. It was a Christmas gift for me and something that I had been wanting to do for a few years. Unfortunately, not many of the pubs were open for business as in previous years, but I imagine that there will be for next year's tour to drink away the year. We saw the noses and had a good walk around; it's a good tour. We also had a bit of bad news at the beginning of the year in that singer David Bowie died; I went to Brixton for the first time and saw the street art mural by JimmyC a few days after it happened.

Seven Noses of Soho

This month also brought two light shows to London: Lumiere London 2016 and Winter Lights @ Canary Wharf. I was lucky to go to both during the time that I had off before starting my new role. Both light shows were amazing and contained interactive and creative pieces. Lumiere London 2016 was held over four evenings, drew huge crowds, and contained some fantastic pieces; that cold January evening will remain in my mind for a long while.

Lumiere London

Last, but not least, I started my new role in the middle of the month and was able to use a mixture of skills to create an awesome application. I was the first developer on it, so I built the groundwork and first application, which was refined and built upon over the months. On the skills side, it was exactly what I wanted to be doing, and I liked my initial colleagues. The location was perfect for me as well as it was not too far from where I live.

February: February was a busy month. I still did not get to see the parade for Chinese New Year in London, but I did get to go to one of London's best restaurants, Yauatcha, to eat dinner and to celebrate the 'Year of the Monkey'. This was one of the best meals I've had this year, and I loved the cute 'Year of the Monkey'-themed macaroons.

Yauatcha macaroons

During Chinese New Year, I also caught up with two good friends, one of which is Chinese, to continue the celebrations by visiting the Magical Lantern Festival @ Chiswick House. The Chinese lanterns were in the shapes of animals, cultural scenes/myths and symbols, dragons, pagodas, and the Zodiac. We had such a good evening seeing the illuminations; the only downside is that part of the trail had been blocked off due to "safety" reasons because of a storm a few days prior to our visit. Half the way through, we drank delicious hot chocolates to keep warm and loved wandering around the trail taking photographs and enjoying each others' company. 

Magic Lantern Festival at Chiswick House

Valentine's Day was a pretty big one this year as I was lucky enough to have booked tickets for Valentine's Day in the 'Harry Potter' Great Hall @ Warner Bros. Studio Tour. Dinner was held in Hogwarts' Great Hall, and then we were given a couple of hours to explore the studio to see some of the newer exhibits that were not there when we visited a few years ago. We enjoyed drinks and Butterbeer while wandering around. Valentine's Day fell on a Sunday this year, so we had our 'Harry Potter' dining experience booked the day before because we did not want to be out late on Sunday as we had work the next day.

Dining in the Great Hall - 'Harry Potter'

On Valentine's Day itself, I surprised the bloke with tickets for a trip on London's Cable Car, also known as (Emirates Air Line). I pre-booked the Valentine's Day experience, and this included a glass of Prosecco and a small box of chocolates that we shared during our round-trip. My camera battery died just as we were about to board the cable car (I did have a spare but no time to change it), so getting decent photographs ended up proving to be troublesome while holding onto a glass of fizz and using my mobile phone. The trip itself was very quick; I wish they had slowed it down more, but the crowds were long for those who had not booked.

London's Cable Car Valentine's Day

March: One of the most memorable and important days for me this year happened to me in early March. After living in the UK for over twelve years, I finally received my British citizenship. I started the citizenship process last September as I had some interest in working in Europe. Early March was the date of the ceremony, which I had to attend in Basingstoke, Hampshire. I had to attend there because the process had started when I was living in Basingstoke, even though we had informed them that I was moving.

British citizenship in Hampshire

On the weekend, a couple of days after the citizenship ceremony, I met up with a small group of friends. We met up for a Sunday roast at the Waterwitch Pub in Odiham (near Basingstoke in Hampshire), and after that, some of us went on a walk along the canal to Odiham Castle. This was the first proper spring day, and we had a lovely walk along the canal chatting with friends and seeing the ruins of this castle.

Odiham Castle

April: April marked 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare, and quite a few events were put on to celebrate the life of the bard. In March, I went to Shakespeare Son et Lumiere projections onto the Guildhall. Later in the month, I went to Antic Disposition's "Henry V" play, which was held at Middle Temple. However, the main event held over the anniversary weekend in April was Shakespeare's 'The Complete Walk' in London. This event consisted of a trail of more nearly 40 videos set up with 10-15 minute segments of different plays recorded by a range of actors and celebrities. The screens were arranged in a trail along the South Bank, starting from St. Thomas' Hospital and ending at City Hall by Tower Bridge. I completed the trail in a day, but the weather was freezing with intermittent rain.

Shakespeare's The Complete Walk

The month was also a big one in terms of street art with the paint jam Endangered13 at Mile End to raise awareness for endangered species. I visited on both days over the weekend to catch up on the progress: Endangered13 Day 1 and Endangered13 Day 2. 

Vintage car at Spitalfields, London

May: In May, we got to explore a local attraction for the first time since moving. We went to Ruislip Lido and Ruislip Lido Railway for its annual open day. This was the first sweltering day of the year, and this brought the crowds out to the lido. We took the train and wandered around the lake before having Sunday lunch and going home to do some work on the house. We just had the windows replaced, and we needed to do some work while the scaffolding was up.

Ruislip Lido

In May, I also crossed something off my London bucket list: the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. I have been wanting to visit for a few years, but never really got around to doing it until this year. We visited it on its last day and had an early start in order to avoid the crowds. I loved the displays, but I wish we could have looked at the seller exhibits for longer to get ideas for our garden. The next day, we had the Chelsea Flower Show Afternoon Tea @ The Dorchester, which was sadly booked up at the event itself. A couple of memorable displays were the 'LG Smart Garden' (pictured below) and the red poppies in front of the Royal Chelsea Hospital.

Chelsea Flower Show

June: This was the month that things felt like they had started to go downhill. The weather was not great this month, and I was feeling tired after the past couple of months as I had been working very hard. I loved what I was doing at work as I was able to use a mixture of my skills, but things changed when some difficult/challenging people joined, and I had to put in more work because they were inexperienced/junior and some did not have a great work ethic. It is amazing how adding the wrong people to a project and not managing it (I did highlight to management the issues because it was making me and others unhappy) can really screw up morale. I loved the team before, and I even considered going permanent there only just weeks before. The situation would continue to get worse because management did not take action.

At the beginning of the month of June, I found myself spending a weekend in Birmingham. The bloke had an event to go to that weekend, so I decided to explore the city while he was at his event. Less than a week before, I had some work done on one of my teeth, but the dentist could not finish it properly as they did not have the correct equipment and gave me a temporary filling. The temporary filling came out within a week, and this exposed the nerve. I was in agony for the majority of the day in Birmingham. The bloke finished his event earlier than he expected and did not have to go back to the event on Sunday, so instead of spending our second day in Birmingham, we returned home. I was in a lot of pain and just could not find the energy to sight-see. On the first day, I also ended up fixing issues, answering questions, and helping colleagues at work on my laptop at the hotel instead of enjoying my time and having a weekend 'free' from work for once.

Birmingham canal

June is also my birthday month, so I had "Hello Kitty" Afternoon Tea at Cutter & Squidge. However, the experience was a nightmare, and that is putting it politely. The service was poor as they got the order wrong three times and forgot about us. The food was not as great as I had expected it should be; a couple of the items were good, but the rest were uninspiring. This is a shame as I've previously enjoyed my visit to this cafe. On top of that, the problems and lack of service meant that we only just received our food and had to rush it into our stomachs. Afternoon tea sittings are in two hour slots, and we only received our order half an hour before our slot was up. We had to rush because I'd booked my next reservation to factor in this slot and travel time, so we had no time to spare. 

'Hello Kitty' Afternoon Tea at Cutter & Squidge

The next reservation was to play the courses at the Brick Lane pop-up mini-golf, Junkyard Golf. There are three courses made out of bits salvaged from junkyards, and we played all three. The place was virtually empty, so we had it to ourselves. While it was fun, I did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would. Half the way home, I realised that we left the leftovers from the afternoon tea at the golf course, and I had to go back to collect it. What a trying day!

Junkyard Golf

Because my birthday day did not go well, I suggested that we go out the day after. We visited Ludgershall Castle, Old Sarum (Wiltshire, England), and Christchurch Castle & Norman House. This was a better day.

Ludgershall Castle

On the same weekend, London was celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's 90th birthday. This is her state birthday as her official birthday is actually in April. I went to central London on the Sunday to see what was going on for the Queen's birthday. The weather was still not great, but I still had a long wander around London to see how people were celebrating and to get photographs to document the event. I also had the special Queen's 90th-themed afternoon tea at St. Ermin's. This special afternoon tea should have been held in the garden, but the weather was wet. 

Queen Elizabeth's 90th birthday

At the end of the month, the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU in a move known as "Brexit". I covered this in my post here: That Was An Interesting Month.... June was not a nice month, and this event brought out the worst in people. People at work were cruel, and I saw/heard about others being disrespectful and intolerant. The cruelty happened on both sides. My opinion about some people changed because of how they were responding and their lack of professionalism, particularly as they made a point of not bringing up certain subjects in the past, which I found hypocritical. I dislike conflict and just wish that everyone would get along. Educated discussions are absolutely fine, and I love a good debate, but what I was witnessing was disrespect, intolerance, and unprofessionalism.

July: Leaving June behind now, the month of July (and the next two months) brought a lot of overtime and hard work; I spent a lot of my own time at work or working more than the hours that I was contracted to do. The amount of overtime after July actually got even more silly, and as a key developer, I was working 9-day weeks on average in order to complete the project in the tight deadline. (And yes, we would make the deadline due to our hard work.)

Work aside, the later part of July brought a few events that are worthy of a mention. The first was 'Star Wars' Celebration 2016, which was held in London this year. Readers may remember that I am a big 'Star Wars' fan. This event was very popular and crowded. I did not get to see everything that I wanted to; however, the most memorable and most unexpected was seeing Mark Hamill. It was the closing time for the event, and he had finished his day signing autographs and started to talk to a small crowd, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Mark Hamill at 'Star Wars' Celebration 2016

After a very wet summer, July finally brought the summer weather. We went to have lunch with friends at The Fisherman's Rest and had a walk around Titchfield Abbey, which was shut during a previous visit due to storm damage. We walked around the abbey to get photographs, and one of our friends ended up parking his classic car in front of it so that we could get some good photographs. Afterwards, we headed to the garden centre next door, and I ended up buying a couple of large plants that required a bit of effort in order to fit into my MINI.

Titchfield Abbey

Toward the end of the month, it was time to see the play "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child". I was fortunate enough to book my tickets in October last year, and these were for the final practice shows before 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' officially opened to the public. The bloke and I saw both parts of the play on the same day, and this took up the whole day. We were both really impressed with the story and production of the play and recommend it.

'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child'

On the last weekend of the month, the bloke and I spent the day in Lincoln. Some of the poppies that were on display at the Tower of London in 2014 to commemorate the soldiers who died in the Great War were now on display at Lincoln Castle (Poppies at Lincoln Castle). We did not spend long here, but I thought that Lincoln was an attractive historical city. The only problem was that I wasn't able to fully enjoy it because I kept thinking of all the work that I had to do, which also meant that we could not stay long.

Lincoln

August: At the beginning of the month of August, I decided to take one weekend day off from all of the overtime that I was doing in order to walk the Zany Zebras Charity Trail in Southampton. I met up with a friend, and we walked the trail together. We had nice weather for it. This was a great way to catch up, and the day ended up being another one of my favourite days out this year.

Zany Zebras in Southampton

On the following weekend, the bloke and I went with a group of friends and family to clueQuest to escape Plan52 Escape Room in London. I got the bloke's brother a Christmas gift to go to this escape room in March, and we returned with an additional two friends to complete one of the other rooms. We had a fun day with ice cream at Ruby Violet, the escape room, a walk along the canal near King's Cross, and dinner before heading back home.

clueQuest ecape room

Another fond memory was visiting the newly-opened Camden KERB street food market shortly after it opened. I had been putting in so much overtime, but I decided to leave work on time on one day in order to visit the market as Camden and its food market gets too busy during the weekends. I was impressed at the quality and variety of food on offer and really enjoyed my visit, even though I went on my own. The weather was perfect, and the food was so good. I am craving the halloumi fries.

KERB Camden

September: September marked 350 years since the Great Fire of London (1666). To remember, the city of London arranged special art installations, events and walks. A wooden replica of London's 1666 skyline was created by an artist, and this was burned on a barge on the Thames. The dome of St. Paul's Cathedral had flames projected onto it, and another art installation featured toppling dominoes that followed the route of the fire. Free Great Fire of London walks also took place in the days leading up to the anniversary of the fire, and the Museum of London are currently exhibiting Fire!Fire!. However, my favourite of the events for the Great Fire of London was the Fire Garden in front of Tate South Bank, which was an art installation of metal frames, movement and fire. I went to this at the beginning of the month.

'Fire Garden' with St. Paul's

The bloke and I also had afternoon tea at the Chesterfield Mayfair, which I'd arranged months ago. The afternoon tea was themed for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", and we managed to get tickets to see the play of the same name in the afternoon.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Chesterfield, Mayfair

At the end of the month, the bloke and I had a long weekend away planned, which was a Christmas gift. We stayed in Oakham in Rutland, which is England's smallest county. We went to a couple of castles first, including Newark and Bolingbroke, before staying in Oakham (where there is another castle). One of the main attractions is Rutland Water, which we went to the following day. Luckily, we had lovely weather on that day, but the previous day (where we saw the castles) was dreary. Of course, our weekend away would have to be the one where we had rain; the weather had been gorgeous previously.

Rutland Water

October: After months of hard work, the overtime was meant to cease at the beginning of the month, but I still needed to do some in order to complete the final hurdle. One of my favourite colleagues who started at the same time as I did left the team, and I just continued to work hard. By the second week, things were calmer, but I was keeping busy by ploughing through the remaining work. The weekend of the 8th of October was the first one where I finally felt that I could relax. All of us had just been told that we would be extended, so I was feeling happy to have some down time and feeling positive that issues would be resolved. This weekend was also the first one that felt properly like autumn. I went into London to Hyde Park to see the event that was taking place to mark the anniversary of the 1066 Battle of Hastings. A camp of actors and participators were set up giving demonstrations about various topics relevant to this period of history. I remember this day well because I was feeling happy and not stressed; I was able to not think so much about work. 

1066 Battle of Hastings - pottery making demonstration

After seeing what I could see at Hyde Park with the Battle of Hastings event, I headed over to Shepherd Market to see Neon Legacy, a series of neon signs that were installed for a few days. These were created by the person responsible for "God's Own Junkyard" who created many signs for Soho and films, such as Blade Runner. Although only a few signs were on display, I really liked a few of these, including the one below.

Neon Legacy

A couple of days after that weekend, I was told that they would not be renewing all contractors, so my free time was then spent on starting to search for a new role before the market slowed down for the holidays instead of having some time to relax a little bit and reclaim my life from all of the overtime I had been doing. That weekend, I had previously planned a trip to Newcastle in order to sight-see and see the Great North Snowdogs. My heart was not really into the trip because my mind was focused on other things.

Tyne, Newcastle

November: I mentioned seeing the Great North Snowdogs in October. In November, the bloke and I drove down to Brighton in order to see Snowdogs by the Sea. We had beautiful weather, which was great due to the walking that we had to do. We did not get to see all of the snowdogs in Brighton because we ran out of time, but we saw most of them. I had never really been to Brighton before to browse much, but I loved what I saw and wished that we had more time to browse.

Snowdogs by the Sea

Early in the month, I left my old role and started my new one. I'm now back at a previous client in east London, so I am now able to keep on track the changes in street art. I am working with nice people, and that makes a big difference. I've also loved seeing the people that I'd worked with previously too.

Thanksgiving Day at The Jones Family Project

At the end of the month, we did not take Thanksgiving Day off this year as I had just started a new role. Instead, we had Thanksgiving Day dinner at The Jones Family Project, which is located in Shoreditch. The food was very good. We also had our Festive Dinner on a Sunday at lunch time at The Coy Carp in Harefield. We enjoyed this as well, and the restaurant gave us a Christmas card as we were their first visitors for the Festive Menu.

Festive Meal at The Coy Carp

December: The month of December brought some much-needed relaxation, friends, family, and additional changes. Building work on the house started, which has been a long time in coming. We moved at the beginning of October last year, and we had not even unpacked because we were waiting on the work to be done. I will be making updates in the new year about the progress. Early in the month, I visited London in order to see London's Christmas lights, and I look forward to seeing them every year.

London's Christmas lights on Regent Street

Also, the bloke and I went to the USA for the holidays. We got to catch up with friends and family and visit local attractions. The first attraction that we went to was the Ohio Amish Country Cookie Tour of Inns, which involved visiting twelve different hotels for a tour and a cookie. 

Ohio Amish Country Tour of Inns

We also went to Cambridge, Ohio to see the Dickens Victorian Village figures and the Courthouse Light Show. There's also many shops, a bakery, and a restaurant here; we spent the day wandering around the glass shops and antique shops. 

Dickens Victorian Village

Later in the month, we had two day trips. First, we went to Clifton Mill, near Dayton, Ohio. We ate at the mill's restaurant and visited a dairy down the road for ice cream before we returned to the mill at dusk to see the beautiful lights covering the mill and grounds. It was really beautiful to see. We also visited Oglebay Park near Wheeling, West Virginia to see their Festival of Lights. 

 
Legendary Lights of Clifton Mill

I spent Christmas with my family, and the world had more shock celebrity deaths. I'm just looking forward to the new year now, and I do hope that it is a much better one. I hope that all of my readers have a great 2017, and Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays! This post features typography used during the holidays with samples on Christmas cards and other holiday advertisement. I've included a sample of the different holiday typography that can be used in various design projects. The selection of fonts includes vintage and modern pieces.

The typography used above includes: Dalle, Santa's Sleigh, Contribute, Faux Snow, Pacifico, Candy Cane, Lavanderia, Christmas Snow, Snow, Cocktail Bubbly, St. Nicholas, LP Snowflake, Frosty, Christmas Flakes, Angel Tears, Christmas Card, and Kingthings Christmas.

http://www.pinterest.com/fontpicker/fonts-on-christmas-cards-font-sunday/

Here are a couple of links to photograph albums on Pinterest that include some examples that I have used above.

http://www.pinterest.com/phillippetty/christmas-cards/

http://www.pinterest.com/fontpicker/font-sunday-fonts-on-christmas-cards/

Earlier this week, my parents and the bloke and I took a day trip to Oglebay Park Resort, which is located in Wheeling, West Virginia. When I was younger, I had heard so much about this light display from others. We never went to it because it was always rumoured to be very busy. We visited earlier in the week, and although it was busy, it was not too busy. The light display starts at 6:00pm, but we found that many of the lights were on earlier. There are about six miles of lights with some along the loop road and others down the road in another part of the resort. Some of the lights were also along the main highway that borders the park.

We arrived earlier to avoid the crowds, and we wanted to take a look in the shops. Our first stop was to the glass shop, gift shop, and garden shop. There is also a glass museum and Oglebay Mansion museum here too. This area was decorated with lights in the shape of flowers. There was also a large nativity scene here, and this was decorated nicely. The shop in the garden house (Palm House) had a good view of the resort, and this can also be enjoyed outside.

After getting more information about the Festival of Lights and shops, we went to a Christmas shop, which was a short drive down the road. We saw many deer in Oglebay Park. 

Before it got really dark, we saw the most beautiful sunset.

We spent about an hour driving around to see the beauitful lights. These were all created in different shapes and moved. We saw running deer, children having a snowball fight, a moving ferris wheel and carousel, a skiier, a train, and so much more. There are tours as well; a trolley located at the main lodge runs tours. There are also coaches that come in. Both of these options have a tour, and I believe that there is a tour on the radio that you can tune in to as well for more information about some of the lights. We didn't do this. 

The Festival of Lights started in 1985, and it runs annually from early November until January 1st. To complete the tour, guests are asked to arrive for 6:00, but we found that the lights were being switched on earlier in most places, and they were being switched on just before dusk. I can imagine that weekends do get extremely busy.

One of the items on my list was to visit Clifton Mill, located near Springfield and Dayton, Ohio. I'd always seen photographs of Clifton Mill as it is very picturesque and used in a lot of photographs and calendars. I never knew where it was, but I happened to see it in a post about good Christmas lights to visit in various locations in Ohio. I convinced my parents and the bloke to have a day road trip with me in order to visit the mill for a meal and then to see the Legendary Lights of Clifton Mill.

Clifton Mill was purchased by its current owners in 1988, and they put Christmas lights on the mill in 1989. Each year, the Christmas lights expanded to what it is today. It starts out at 6:00pm each night; the lights are turned on, and a light show begins the display with the covered bridge next to the mill becoming illuminated while being set to music. The rest of the grounds and the mill itself is illuminated with twinkling lights, some of them appearing to be moving water, and they light up the rocks along the creek below and the mill wheel. The photographs really do not do any justice as to how awesome and beautiful it looked.

However, it's not all about the Christmas lights. We arrived at Clifton Mill near mid-day after a two-hour car journey. In the winter, the Clifton Mill restaurant is not open for dinner unless it is a Friday or Saturday night. Instead, we stopped in to have lunch. Their breakfast menu is available all day, and my mother and I opted for breakfast while the bloke and my father had the hamburger. My mother had French toast (which was tempting and delicious), but I had the buttermilk pancakes with blueberries. Both were served with Maple Syrup. The portion size of the pancakes was huge. Apparently, those who can finish the two massive and thick pancakes get a third for free. I could not even finish one of the pancakes; they were the largest pancakes I have ever seen! The pancakes are the signature dish and are delicious; they sell them in three flavours (buttermilk, buckwheat and cornflower), and the mixes are sold at their gift shop. The pancakes and French toast could be served with pecan-syrup bacon. This tasted so good that I ordered another two rashers.

Raspberry lemonade

Pancakes

Blueberry pancakes

French toast

Hamburger

Also located next to the mill is an old gas station with a working pump, and this doubles as a museum. I believe that gas-related items can be seen at other times of the year, but in the winter, part of it is a toy museum. The other part of it is a Santa's room, but we did not visit that area. Santa climbs the chimney once every twenty minutes when the light show is on, and he waves to the crowd before descending back into his room. The building was only open during the light show.

Gas station

The covered bridge was also closed and only open during the light show, so we could not enter it. We could see the replica model village, though, but a few buildings and items were covered and not running; they only came to life during the light show hours. Model diners, a drive-in theatre showing movie clips, a train, and other replica buildings were on display.

After we ate our meals, we headed out to check out the village of Yellow Springs, which had the air of a university village. We went into a couple of shops before driving to Jersey Dairy, which is another attraction up the road from Clifton Mill. They have a nice gift shop, restaurant, and crazy golf course here. The main attraction is the ice cream. For the "flavour of the week", two scoops of ice cream are given for the price of one. The flavour was "Peppermint Stick", so I had this, and the ice cream was amongst the best that I've ever had. It tasted so good, and it was so creamy and smooth (with bits of peppermint here and there). 

Peppermint stick ice cream from Young's Jersey Dairy

Yellow Springs

After this, we drove back to the Interstate to have a wander for a couple of hours at the Central Ohio Antiques Centre. There are a few different antique malls here, and the one we visited was so huge that we did not even come close to seeing everything before we had to leave to go to Clifton Mill to see the Legendary Lights.

We arrived at Clifton Mill when the doors opened at 5:00pm for the Legendary Lights. The first light show takes place at 6:00pm, which we did not realise at the time. Refreshments were being sold with pulled pork, hot dogs, pretzels, popcorn, sugar cookies, hot chocolate, coffee, and mulled cider on offer. I ordered a hot chocolate, mulled cider, cookie and popcorn to share while we sat by the window in the mill and waited before grabbing some good spots for the light show. The temperatures were freezing again, so we watched the light show and did not hang around too long. I wish that the snow had still been on the ground in order to justify the freezing temperatures, at least.

I found the light show to be beautiful and recommend it. Do note that it is popular, and we visited on a Monday and it was still very busy. To see the lights, it costs $10.00 per person to enter the grounds. We found this a little steep when considering that the refreshments were also costly; it was $3.00 for one of those small styrafoam cups filled with hot chocolate or mulled wine. However, I do think that the maintenance and cost of installing the lights is very expensive. Also, make sure to get there early and grab a good spot to see the light show projected onto the covered bridge as there is not a lot of room. Unfortunately, they have boarded up the windows on the covered bridge and on the opposite side of the bridge so that you are unable to take any photographs in the prime locations and have to settle with an angle of the mill. I wish that we could have taken photographs from better angles, and this is my main criticism.

From the first of November until the beginning of January, the Courthouse Light Show takes place in Cambridge, Ohio. The light show is projected onto the courthouse and snychronised with Christmas music. The lights change colour and blink on and off to reveal different shapes, which relate to the music being played. Cambridge, Ohio also offers the Dickens Victorian Village figures on display along the main street and around the courthouse, and you may have seen my previous post about this: Dickens Victorian Village. 

I previously went in 2009, and that was another very cold and wintery day with snow on the ground. That year, we opted to watch the display from the car. On cold days, the light show can be watched from the car while tuning into a particular radio station. However, I survived thirty minutes of the light show in the cold this year, along with another group of people who were there before we arrived. 

The courthouse was built in 1881. The light show consists of over 55,000 lights and three 20-foot Christmas trees and 60 animated displays. Traditional, children's, and contemporary Christmas songs are played. There are four different light shows that are between 8 and 12 minutes long each. I watched half an hour of the show.

Cambridge's Courthouse Light Show takes place daily from 5:30pm until 9:00pm. It plays until 11:00pm on its extended days, which include Thanksgiving day, Christmas day, Christmas eve, New Year's day, and New Year's eve. The courthouse is located on Wheeling Avenue, which is the main street through downtown Cambridge.

A lot has been happening over the past week with cheese and wine and tours to Cambridge to see Dickens Victorian Village and the Courthouse Light Show. We also visited Newark, Ohio. A few days ago, the bloke and I caught the first showing of "Rogue One", the new "Star Wars" film. I wasn't too disappointing and I enjoyed it overall. I won't be spoiling it for anyone who has not seen it.

One of the places we visited in Newark was Buckeye Winery, which is located on the courthouse square. Newark's courthouse is always decorated beautifully for the holidays, but they have had a break this year while they restore the building and its clock tower. I covered Newark's courthouse Christmas lights in a previous post from 2013. Buckeye Winery has a large selection of wines and gifts, including the slushie flavoured wines that have a sweet taste. Pizzas can be purchased from the pizza place (Christy's) a few buildings away, or they can be ordered in. Their pizza is good! This time, we ordered the cheese selection. There are several types of cheese to choose from, but I got the sharp cheddar and the smoked cheddar to keep everyone happy. The cheese came with crackers.

We ordered peach, Santa's Punch (described as a red wine), and strawberry wine slushies to have with the cheese. The very cold weather did not prevent us from ordering these!

Afterwards, we walked back to the car and had a look at the restoration work on the courthouse. We also saw the new murals, and some of these were painted from historical photographs. The murals were historical scenes with some of them mimicking old shop fronts.

Another attraction of Newark are the Indian (native American) mounds. These stretch for miles, and a lot of them have been destroyed a long time ago. The local mall takes its name from these burial mounds. Some of the preserved ones stretch through this park, and as far as we know, they are not arranged into any shapes like the Serpent Mound in southern Ohio.

Last, but not least, we learned that astronaut/politician John Glenn died. He was from New Concord, Ohio. This isn't far from Cambridge, Ohio, so there were tributes to him and a lot of flags were flying half-mast around our area. My grandmother went to school with him and knew him; he was a year older. Apparently, he wasn't that great at school but did so well afterwards.