The month that was: December 2020

What happened:
The most festive time of year! Even if things looked a little different in December 2020 and didn't go quite to plan because of, yet again, tier changes.  

First up, since I was WFH, I decided to buy a tiny real Christmas tree to sit on my work desk. An excellent way to start the month. I also bought an advent calendar... I stopped eating its contents halfway through, and then ate the rest of it in one sitting. Just me who does this?! It was The Naked Marshmallow Co Gourmet advent calendar, in case you're wondering.

      

Olly's mum came to stay the first weekend in December when we were out of lockdown - we're her support bubble - and we had some yummy meals out (see below) and sorted out the big Christmas tree that weekend. My favourite tree yet! We headed into central London the following weekend to see the Christmas lights and have dinner at ROVI (again, see below), and I'm glad we did because London jumped from tier 2 to tier 3 a few days later... then a few days later into tier 4. Eek!

This meant our Christmas plans in Kent with Olly's family were swiftly changed - and we missed dinner at Flat Iron. Instead, we spent Christmas at home with Compy - we went for porchetta instead of turkey - and then spent the time afterwards watching lots of films and doing little else. New Year's Eve was, of course, spent at home as well. 

What I ate:

We headed to Pad Thai Story, GAIL's Bakery and The Latchmere with Olly's mum, then Olly and I went to ROVI the following weekend. We've had takeaway from Pad Thai Story before, but I heartily recommend eating in, when allowed, as the food is tasty! ROVI was super incredible and we feasted on lots of delicious dishes there. Shout-outs for the charred leeks, walnut tarator, date molasses dish (below), the celeriac shawarma dish, and especially for the ROVI black barley miso fudge with vanilla salt. Yum! 

      

We ordered the Bubbledogs Mexican kit... but DHL didn't deliver it on time so we had a Burger & Beyond takeaway instead, then made LA dirty dogs from LA Son when it also didn't show the next day. Will have to try ordering that one again. We got some yummy baked goods from Buzzing Bee Baked Things - including a salted caramel panettone - and saw in the new year with the Almost Famous NYE box (pictured below with our Christmas dinner and some very excellent gin crackers). We'll definitely be ordering burgers from Almost Famous again (and the gin crackers next Christmas!).

       

      

What I watched:

TV shows watched: MasterChef: The Professionals (our friend Bart made it to the final three!), season 1-3 of Black Books, volume 2 of Song Exploder, season 2 of The Mandalorian, the new The Grand Tour episode, Dash & Lily, season 4 of The Crown, Death to 2020 and started watching The Masked Singer.

Films watched: Home Alone, Last Christmas, Mulan (2020), Noelle, Dolittle, Home Alone 2, Elf, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Santa Clause, Happiest Season, Godmothered, Love Actually, Die Hard, Bad Santa, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Jingle all the Way, Batman Begins, The Christmas Chronicles Part 2, Soul, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Holidate, National Lampoon's Vacation, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Prom, National Lampoon's European Vacation, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Skyfall.

Theatre watched: Kinky Boots.

What I read:

In December I read 12 books. I rated the first three Bridgerton books as 4* reads, as well as The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, Away with the Penguins by Hazel Prior, The Salt Path by Winn Raynor and Limitless by Tim Peake. All my ratings are over on Goodreads, as always. 

So, that was 2020. We made it! Will be sharing my 2020 round-up next, but here's to, hopefully, a much better 2021! x