Lunch Box - Butternut squash, potato and dill quiche

Main: Butternut squash, potato and dill quiche and side salad of spinach, tomato and roast capsicum
Fruit: Apple slices
Treat: Afghan biscuits

A big slab of carb-filled quiche today to stave off those winter blues. The temperature is still hovering around 0 degrees (although the snow has thankfully melted) and the bank balance is suffering, having paid in advance for all our summer holidays. The only reasonable thing to do is stay inside and bake. I had the perfect weekend; on Saturday I made a pork ragu and a lemon meringue pie and stayed in, all cosy and warm, watching a Michael Haneke film. It wasn't until I checked my phone around 10.30pm and saw all the Facebook posts along the lines of "Snow!!!" that I realised it had been snowing all afternoon! Our garden was covered in 3 inches of the stuff and I was glad to be at home and not stranded at some nightclub wearing ill-advised footwear. Ah, the joys of getting old(er)...

Christmas in London

One of the great things about living in London is being able to jet off to Paris, Vienna or Istanbul at a moment's notice. However, in the winter this isn't such an advantage, as most of Europe basically freezes over. To get anywhere sunny would take at least twelve hours, and a months' wages. You're not even guaranteed to get to wherever it is you are going, due to the high possibility of travel delays due to snow and about 10 million people all trying to leave the country at once. After two years of "winter sun" holidays (Morocco and Portugal) my boyfriend and I have decided, in the interests of our bank balances and our sanity, to stay in the UK. Or, more accurately, in Peckham. The idea of 10 days watching "How I Met Your Mother" (my boyfriend's favorite show) and battling with the locals at Peckham Morrison's (our "famine-relief centre" as stand-up comic Sean Locke so elequently put it) fills me with something akin to terror. So, I have decided that we are going to have a holiday. We just aren't going to fly anywhere. We are going to do all the usual holiday things: go to museums, art galleries, restaurants, markets, see sights and treat ourselves. All the money we will be saving on airfares and accomodation we can put into massage treatments and 3 course dinners. Here are some of my favorite market and museum ideas for Christmas in London:

Borough Markets

Opening hours:

Saturday 24^th Dec 8am-3pm

Thursday 29^th Dec 10am-5pm

Friday 30^th Dec 10am-6pm

Saturday 31^st Dec 8am-3pm

Photo taken from here

HydePark Winter Wonderland

Markets, rides, mulled wine, hot dogs!

Opening hours: 10am-10pm until 3^rd January

Free

 

Wellcome Collection
183 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE
Closed 24^th - 26^th Dec and the 31^st Dec - 1^st Jan
Opening hours between 27th Dec - 2nd Jan:12.00-18.00

Exhibitions:
Infinitas Gracias: Mexican miracle paintings - Free
Felicity Powell - Charmed Life: The solace of objects - Free

Photograph: LH Pordes/British Library

British Library
96 Euston Road
London NW1 2DB
Closed 23^rd - 27^th Dec
Opening hours:
Mon, Wed, Thurs, Fri: 9.30-18.00, Tues: 9.30-20.00, Sat: 9.30-17.00, Sun: 11.00-17.00
Exhibitions:
Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination - £9
A Hankering after Ghosts: Charles Dickens and the Supernatural - Free
Mary Queen of Scots - Free
Arthur Conan Doyle: The Unknown Novel – Free

Photo taken from here

Design Museum

28 Butlers Wharf, Shad Thames, London, United Kingdom SE1 2Y
Opening hours: Daily 10am - 5.45pm, Last admission at 5.15pm (closed 25^th and 26^th Dec)
Tickets:£11 adultsDesign MuseumOpened in 1989 (following its original incarnation as the Boilerhouse established in the V&A by Terence Conran), the Design Museum by Tower Bridge...
Exhibition: This is Design

Whew! I'll be knackered after all that. And hungry too. So I'd better think up some places for a bite to eat...

What are your favorite things to do over the Christmas hols?