Festive London at Christmas

You can tell we are getting old, instead of Christmas presents this year, we decided to have an afternoon in London to look at the lights and have afternoon tea. The train was heaving and then at Oxford Circus, the tube corridor has sick on the floor and wafting up the escalators, mid afternoon! Our first stop was Carnaby Street and Choccywoccydoodah. The floating robin decorations were the best we saw all day. The window decoration of Choccy was excellent, it's like adult Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory. We had to queue to get in the café, but was entertained by the Maitre 'd and given a piece of chocolate cake to keep us going.

We managed to get the table in the corner with 3 side views looking over to Christmas shoppers below. The menu was simple, chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. The hot chocolate is made up of molten chocolate with hot milk. I opted for a white chocolate one, Ali had dark. Oh my gosh! Then I had a dipping pot with white chocolate, fruit, pieces of the cakes, chocolate crunchie, marshmallows, chocolate pretzels...I ate half and was considering throwing up, so stopped. I asked if anyone has ever thrown up. One person has, because they were in the chocolate 'secret room' for 2 hours!

Luckily, they give you a doggy bag to take home what you don't eat. The prices were really normal too, but we could have easily shared one piece of cake with 4 people. Ali's chocolate cake was a huge wedge, the biggest piece of cake I've ever seen. We even saw the owner at the tube station.

Onwards, our next stop was Charing Cross to see the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree which has been given to London every year from Oslo since 1947, to thank us for help during the second world war. A choir was single carols in front of it, raising money for charity. Our next stop was Covent Garden to see the coca cola truck and decorations. I had to take a picture of the queue for a photo, it was massive!

Back on the tube, then onto South Kensington to the Natural History Museum to see the skating rink and carousel. The kids had these penguin push things to stop them falling over. I need one of those skating! We still felt sick from Choccy, so walked to Harrods, you can't miss it. The window display was wonderful, called the Harrods Christmas Express and train based.

We got to our venue for afternoon tea, Fortnum and Mason and the Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon, opened last year by the Queen, Duchess of Cambridge and Duchess of Cornwall. Change of shoes for the dress code of 'elegance'. We had our coats and shopping put in the cloak room. The first thing I noticed, they don't cram you in, there was lots of space between us and the next table. Elegance is a very appropriate word. We ordered our gluten free afternoon tea, a coffee and jug of traditional lemonade. Sandwiches of salmon, coronation chicken, ham, egg and cress. 4 scones with clotted cream and assorted preserves, then a macaroon, chocolate cake, bakewell and raspberry dessert. We had a refill of sandwiches, at no extra cost, refill of coffee. They would have kept refilling, but we were full, so we had to have doggy bag number 2 for the day! In a gorgeous box, with the preserves.

What a Christmas present to each other.