“Maybe ‘extremely lucky’ are the most appropriate words of the evening. But he can’t have them. They don’t apply to him. They apply to us.” - AL

Apologies for writing so very little for the last month. I feel like it has flown by in a whirlwind of guests, trips, shopping, walking, rain, and work. Especially work. I am beyond exhausted, just absolutely physically drained, and am ready to go home and re-charge for a bit. As happy as I have been here, and I am very happy here, I need my safe haven, need that piece of me back for a bit.

Let’s see, nothing too exciting to report. I haven’t done much the past few weeks or weekends, unfortunately. I am in the process of getting sick and tried to sleep it away this weekend – to no avail. And I am so tired after work that I can’t even manage to drag myself to the theatre – now you know exactly how exhausted I’ve been!

But enough complaining. It’s December and I’m in London! The lights have all been switched on and the store windows are decked out. The windows at Selfridge’s are my favorites, and I catch something different each time I walk by. To be honest, I am not overly impressed with Oxford Street’s lights, but they do have big chandelier type lights every few rows and if you weren’t already aware, chandeliers rank right up there with fountains in my book. The night they turned the lights on on New Bond Street, they had a snow machine, so as I walked down Oxford bits of “snow” hit my face. I think I smiled all the way home. I went to Covent Garden this weekend – one of my favorite places in London – and got to hear the cast of “Sweet Charity” sing a Christmas carol, and also got to gaze at the truly hideous Covent Garden Christmas tree. It’s like gnomes decorated it – the lights are only at the bottom, and there are probably less than 10 star ornaments on it, all placed haphazardly. By gnomes.

I am still having trouble realizing that Christmas is so close. I get like this every year I suppose. It never felt like Christmas until after finals were over, until after I was home, so I’m assuming it will be the same thing this year. But I am nearly finished with my Christmas shopping, just a few things to pick up once I’m back home. But at least I stuck to a budget this year – gasp! But don’t be alarmed, I keep buying myself random things to make up for it.

Our work Christmas party is this week. It’s my first Christmas party as an adultish person and I’m excited. It should be interesting to say the least. Starts at 2 p.m. and moves to a pub at 4 p.m. that doesn’t close until midnite. And it’s free alcohol. Did I mention it will be interesting?

In the meantime, I'm counting down the days until I'm back in the land of biscuits that aren't cookies, with TVs showing Carolina basketball and NFL games, with all my friends in the same time zone, where I can walk around my house with my eyes closed and never get lost.