Noël à Bruxelles

Ste. Catherine Christmas market and funfair

Place du Grand Sablon, the best-decorated carpark in Brussels

Rue des Tongres, my local shopping street

Christmas at St. Christopher's Place

and Marylebone High Street

Christmas at Covent Garden

London lights

I know it looks as though I was drunk but I like it!

Oxford Street

Wet Christmas!

I was wrong in forecasting a white Christmas, after all. Not that I'm complaining, hope the rain washes the snow/slush away and that it doesn't freeze tonight.

Merry Christmas to all, or whatever else you celebrate!

Back from Blighty

Managed to get back from London despite the best efforts of Eurostar (services cancelled on the day I was due to travel back with them - and I was lucky to get there on Friday when a later train got stuck in the tunnel for 12 hours!) and British Airways (which luckily called off a proposed strike but flight was delayed for nearly 4 hours, 3 spent waiting in the plane for de-icing..)!

I went there mainly to see the exhibition "Maharaja - The Splendour of India's Royal Courts" at the V&A, which ends in London on 17 Jan but will then be going to Munich. I heartily recommend it especially to anyone who likes jewellery - I thought the most stunning item on display was the emerald belt of Maharaja Sher Singh, on loan from the Royal Collection: the photo here doesn't really do it justice, each of the emeralds is the size of a small bar of soap! I hate to think what any Indian visitors felt about the amount of loot on display that was basically snaffled by the East India Company. Anyway, I was reminded that one of these days I must go to Doha to visit the Museum of Islamic Art, which must have a stunning collection of Mughal jewellery, from what I have seen on loan at this exhibition and a previous one in Antwerp.

Photography wasn't allowed at the exhibition, but elsewhere in the museum I was rather taken by this Victorian "powder room":

The tiles incorporate the logo of the V&A plus crown, lion and unicorn which presumably refer to Queen Victoria

















and an installation in the courtyard (John Madejski Garden) called "Mirror Mirror", by Jason Bruges Studio (more pics here).

Omnibus edition

My friend L. (who, however, has herself forgotten about facebook and hasn't shown us any photos of Istanbul!) reminds me that I have been very remiss in posting this year. I actually forgot to take the camera on my last trip to England, where enjoyed a lovely day with C. in Henley, with a boat trip on the Thames and a great pub dinner at "The Angel on the Bridge", it's a shame I couldn't photograph the guys playing "conkers" on the pub's terrace - in the days before I went back to work, I had the camera with me always, but those days are long gone.

Anyway, here's a selection of things I have been doing.

Working, with 3 trips this year to South America: this is Bogota from the Hotel Fontana, no idea what the white balloons were for!

And this is the chapel at the hotel:
























Caught this sunset a couple of weeks ago, how come whenever I do it's always somewhere with nothing interesting to put in front of it? (but it's nice to see that the construction industry in Brussels is still doing well!)

Running about for Christmas: in this (Irish) pub window St. Nicolas and Santa seem to be having a fight - I find it odd that the same person gave rise to separate traditions, the Belgians (and Dutch) celebrate St. Nick on the night of 5 December.

And here (as it started snowing) is a Europe-themed Christmas tree at the European Parliament:























It looks as though we are going to have a white Christmas - this was the garden of my building, this afternoon:

Off to London tomorrow!