Things I Would Rather Do Than Christmas Shopping

This year I’ve decided to keep my Christmas shopping to a minimum, and if I do have to go Christmas shopping, then it will be somewhere worth visiting, that happens to have a gift shop attached, like the Geffrye Museum It’s a wonderful gem of a place that has been transformed, but not diminished, since I first went to visit while studying furniture design in the ’80’s. At this time of year its eleven period rooms are decorated in authentic festive style to show what Christmas would have looked and felt like in English homes over the past 400 years, and it’s only a stone’s throw from Columbia Road

Columbia Road is no longer just a Sunday Morning flower market, though it still is that, only now it is flanked by wonderful wide variety of shops like Treacle, any shop that sell tea and cake is a hit with me. Even though I’m not Christmas shopping I would head towards Cheshire Street via Redchurch Street and the lovely Caravan, as I am so nosy I would have to see what they had in, I would also have to swoon in front of the Ally Capellino shop on Calvert Avenue, it’s a gorgeous space, I would move in right away if I could . If I were far sighted enough to book, I would have lunch at the Rochelle School Canteen which just so happens to be where I did a women only woodworking course after I left college, and needed access to some serious machinery.

I would of course have to visit Labour and Wait on Cheshire Street and try not to buy any presents for myself, although a packet of seeds is allowed. Their purple podded climbing beans are very tasty indeed……. And for aother taste of Christmas Past, no shopping involved, I would visit Dennis Severs’ House in Folgate Street.

Then I expect I would be running out of steam, but would head for Spitalfields Market and Leon and find my favourite chair to sit on with a cup of tea and something delicious. I love this chair. This chair was meant to be mine. Don’t think I haven’t thought about liberating it from it’s present location. I shall, however, make do with visiting rights, but heaven forbid I find anyone sitting in it………..