2010.

2010 (if we're doing it like this again) has been a year of travelling; of foreign cities and moving trains and picnic lunches with cheese and bread. In 2010 I came back to London in the snow, booked a trip to Paris, made up with friends, hung out in Manchester and Cambridge and Lincoln, rode on the Eurostar, climbed the Eiffel Tower, got into politics, revised and wrote essays, ran the Race for Life, moved house, travelled Europe on a shoestring, made fortune tellers and ran around in playgrounds with children on playscheme, pub quizzed my way around Conwy, climbed Snowdon, went to Bratislava, Budapest and Vienna with the fam, moved back to London, turned twenty-one, had major birthday celebrations, dressed up, broke up and went to Krakow. In 2010 there were cameras and city maps, mosquito bites and birthday cakes, swing sets and sunflowers, bunk beds and felt tip pens. There were tears and laughter and squiggly nerves as well, but you know what, there always will be, so what the hell. Stop mentioning it, Jess.

You'd better look out below.

Miraculously, I made my way to Victoria coach station without fuss on Saturday morning (although I did have a mini meltdown when the tube stopped at Westminster for more than ten minutes). Delighted that for once I had made the right bus at the right time, I was content to sit back quietly and read my book all the way to Manchester. Sadly it was not to be. Somehow, I had not banked on the alternative megabus conundrum: the uncooperative neighbour. My travel companion for the five and a bit hours that ensued was a boy from Pakistan, who was studying English in Manchester. He seemed nice enough and for a while I was perfectly happy to talk (with inexperience) about football and Lollywood movies and the places I had visited when I was in Pakistan five years ago. That was all very well and good. However, when the conversation turned persistently to co-founding an import-export business together and marital visas and running away to Paris in the Spring, Shudehill bus station could not come about quick enough.

After an hour of disorientation and a Christmas Market vs. heavy bag debacle, my family found me crouched on a wall, eating Swiss macaroni with a plastic spork. We ate a hasty pizza dinner before heading to the GMEX to watch two hours of Devandra Banhart (♥ "hey there little snapping turtle, snapping at at shell") and Arcade Fire (expecting every next song to be Wake Up). I am amazed that in a crowd predominately made up of eighteen-thirty year olds, I was knocked over time and time again by a group of middle-aged bald men, attempting to start a mosh pit. Oh the youth grown ups of today.

I don't want a lot for Christmas.

Just a couple of cross stitch kits and a camera and a super awesome teacake cushion and some dvds and some very hungry caterpillar cupcake cases and and and...

Peter Pantomime.

Where on earth did 8th week come from? One moment it's November and it's Bonfire Night and I'm off to Poland and the next thing I know it's December and we're decking the halls (we have a Christmas tree and his name is Barney ♥) and singing along to Christmas songs and I am off to Oxford for Charlotte's annual Christmas play.

I left London in the middle of a snowstorm and went on a festive bus ride through the Chilterns, arriving in Oxford full of winter cheer. At the park and ride I met up with my auntie and we went for lunch at a Lebanese restaurant in Jericho. It was colourful and delicious and extra wonderful because the waiter sat us down at a table next to the (warm, warm) radiator. After pitta bread and moutabel we went to the Ashmolean to see the 'Pre-Raphaelites and Italy' exhibition (because what would a trip to Oxford be without a healthy dose of Rossetti, Holman-Hunt and co.?), then I went to Mansfield to meet up with Charlotte.

We went to the Peter Pan rehearsal, while I waited for David and we had a massive Harry Potter outburst ("Hi, this is my husband Bill", "Hi, I'm Ron's brother", "He likes his steaks raw now, hohoho", "Oh my husband Remus, the joker" = SUMMED UP) and folded programmes. David popped up eventually and we went for tea at the Eagle and Child (tradition much). Then it was play time and as usual the (Peter) Pantomime was witty and fun and Charlotte played her part of Alfred ("I'm Dave...") the pirate with particular finesse.

In the evening we lay on Charlotte's big new bed in her big new room and we watched our favourites on youtube (plus the David Tennant look-alike and a disturbing Argentinian dance competition (shudder)). In the morning we had a lie-in and I went a-shopping and in the afternoon I went home again and that was that. Lovely.