Its snow in London

We arrived here on Tuesday 15th night and on Wednesday morning it began to flurry and everything came to a sort of halt. Of course by midday it had cleared. We went into London on Thursday, and, after lunch at M&S with Hazel and Helen, walked down Oxford Street and Regent Street looking at the window decor and the street decorations. Quite festive. We ended up at Trafalgar Square where we heard carols in freezing temperatures. After an hour, we quit and came back to Croydon where we had dinner with Nigella and Brian Kennedy at 'Tiger Tiger' a pub with very, loud music and a curry special - a curry and a drink for £4.99. I had a Madras curry and several lagers - Kronenberg followed by Stella's - beer in the UK is robust, unlike our watery US beers. Then on Friday it really snowed -two to three inches - and everything really came to a halt. Here is what 'Squirrels Nook', the quaint cottage where my in laws live, looks like. We cancelled our program to go into town and hung out at home the whole day, so I got caught up with this blog. Our niece and godchildren came over and hung out for a while and enjoyed them. Tomorrow its carols at St Paul's cathedral and I am looking forward to that.
Sunday 23rd. Attending the family service carols service at St Paul's cathedral was a wonderful experience. St Pauls holds over 2000 persons, we went early and were among the first in, so we had a place very close to the choir, under the dome's massive cupola. I was in awe of the grandeur of the size, the stonework and the painted ceiling. St Pauls was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in the mid 1800's, but service at the site has been going on since AD 604 (per the cathedral's brochure). The choir was Cantate - young men and women - the only choir to win a gold medal at the World Choir games in 2008. The conductor was Michael Kibblewhite, one of the UK's best known choral directors. With this ensemble the singing was exquisite. But enthralled as I was with the music, I was even more impressed with the service, where the dean asked the audience not to quieten their children, because God was a little child and he proceeded to hold a little child above his head and asked all parents who had little children to do the same. He then asked the audience to observe a few moments of silence and listen to the 'sounds of the children'. It was magical; silence punctuated only by children's cries, and calls and murmurs.
Today we went to a local church for a children's Christmas celebration - another wonderful fulfilling experience. Over 50 children, including our grandniece and three grandnephews, participated in singing Christmas carols, reading appropriate passages from the bible and enacting the Christmas story. Another exquisite, soul uplifting experience. Christmas seems to be quintessentially English, and they seem to celebrate it so uniquely, with such a pronounced focus on children