Suburban Spring Photos

Usually, May Day is something associated with the countryside. You tend to think of country fairs complete with maypole dancing, Morris dancing and the May Queen pageant. You rarely think about spring in the city or town suburbs, mainly because the first thing that comes to mind are the tall concrete buildings.

I'm lucky to live in the suburbs. It's always nice to look round the back roads and see the trees and flowers that are there. It also means that I live between the city and the countryside, so it's essentially the best of both worlds.

To celebrate May Day, here are some photos I took during the spring in the suburbs where I live. I am a massive photo nut - ever since I managed to get a phone with a camera on it, I have never stopped using it. I especially wanted to capture what springtime is like in my area with the flowers and other plants.

I'm using the close-up photos from my phone here. Not only is this so I don't give away the locations for the sake of privacy, but also to highlight the beauty of nature. However, I will leave little aspects of the urban area in some of the photos if I feel it lends a good contrast to the natural aesthetic of the plants.

  

It's only fitting that crocuses, a flower very often associated with spring, should be the first flowers to appear in my photos here. These were found near benches in one of my local parks, which happens to be next to a bypass. I left part of one of the benches nearby in the last photo. There were some cigarettes nearby unfortunately, but I made sure not to include them.

 

 

Daffodils are another major spring flower, and these ones were planted in circles around tree poles in the park. They're right next to a play park area, and you can see the fence in the last photo.

I also took a picture of some magnolia flowers in the same park. Some of the flowers have already opened up while the others are still closed.

 

There was a day I went out and for some reason a lot of worms were on the ground. I took a few close-ups of them - these are just a few of the photos and I like the different lengths and widths they have. I've always been a big fan of mini-beasts and worms are just some of my favourites - they have a pretty cool appearance and they're good for helping out the environment, especially when it comes to the soil.

There is a local National Trust place I often go to on Sundays, which happens to be in a town area with a train station nearby. There are plenty of birds there, including this heron that I took a photo of. I had to crop some of the photo, but I kept part of the car park in because I felt it showed a nice contrast between the natural world and the urban world.

On Easter Sunday, I went for a walk round the back roads and took some photos of the flowers. Cherry blossoms are always a favourite of mine - I love the pink and white colours they come in, but also the symbolism associated with them.

Magnolias have a similar vibe to cherry blossoms. These ones were going over but they still had the bright pink hues.

This was a flower in a box next to a car park near a high street, done as part of a wild flower project. I don't know if the flower was going over or not, but I loved the wispy edges on the petals.

I think this flower from the same box was a tulip that had split open. I still think flowers look good when they go over - it's interesting to compare what they look like normally and what they look like in this state.

In another one of the boxes was this daffodil. This was one of the few daffodil close-ups I was able to get that didn't involve the flower going over.

 

And of course I had to take these photos of more cherry blossom trees up close. This time, I really made sure to take close-ups of the flowers themselves.

Bluebells are one of my favourite flowers to see in the springtime and this is a small patch of them in the wooded part of one of the local parks. I'm not sure what type they are - I think they're English, but they could also be a hybrid between English and Spanish.

This is a picture of King Alfred's Cake, a fungus that grows on trees. These fungi were in our local park and though fungi aren't normally associated with spring, they look pretty cool.

This is a picture of a daisy that I took on the 28th April. It seems basic and simple, but I do like how it stands out against the green grass and how it looks up close.

Ultimately, what I find interesting about spring time in the urban areas is that it is still possible to signs of nature in them. Besides the National Trust property and the local parks, there are the trees on the roads and the flower boxes in the more city-like areas. It's quite likely why spring is my favourite season of all time. :)

Reviewing The Golden Raspberry Awards 2023

Razzie time again! I was a bit delayed releasing this due to work, but that allowed me to hopefully avoid another embarrassing incident like with my last one, as I will mention soon. As with my previous two posts, I plan to analyse every single recipient of these "awards" as well as give my thoughts on whether they deserved them or not. I saw the many guesses that people had made as to which films would be nominated - some of the ones I'll be mentioning were expected, but others came off as a surprise.

Before I start reviewing though, I would like to discuss two things from last year's post.

The first is the business with Bruce Willis' award. A whole category was set up for all the dreadful movies he was part of in 2021, due to there being so many. However, it was discovered afterwards that Willis had been diagnosed with aphasia and the "award" was rendered null and void in response. I honestly think this was the best course of action. Sure, the movies are still horrible and I cannot believe that so many could have been made in one year, but if his illness affected his acting, it shouldn't be right to hand him an "award" that makes fun of him. Especially since the disease affects his cognitive abilities such as language and speech.

The second is about a case of bad timing on my part, specifically with regard to Will Smith winning the Razzie Redeemer award for King Richard. You see, I made sure that the article was up in the afternoon just after the Razzies were announced - in fact, I wrote a lot of the article before the Razzie winners were announced, with the appropriate edits being made afterwards. Keep in mind that the Razzies get announced the night before the Oscars. I wrote quite a glowing piece on how King Richard was a redeeming moment for Will Smith and that he was the favourite of the awards season and how hopefully his career wouldn't go downhill again in the future...

...And then at the Oscars, he bitch slapped Chris Rock onstage for making fun of his wife and got kicked out of the Academy as a result. Honestly, my views on it are very mixed. On the one hand, I don't think much of Chris Rock anyway. When he was at the Oscars last time, he made a derogatory comment about voice acting and how it was so easy, even though in reality it's an entirely different beast when compared to onscreen acting. If anything, I think it's harder due to having to focus more on the voice than anything else and some people who are brilliant on-screen actors like Sandra Bullock don't do so well with the voice-acting part. The tasteless alopecia joke was simply a new low for Rock, even if the rumours that he didn't know about Jada Pinkett-Smith's alopecia condition turn out to be true. Considering he made jokes about her before, I think he just has a really misguided conception that since they were together in Madagascar, it gives him the right to joke about her. And it doesn't help that some people were all like "it's just a joke, why do you have to be offended?", even though alopecia is a genuinely serious condition that can really play havoc with your self-esteem.

On the other hand though, don't slap someone live on TV like that. Everyone else was already moaning and showing distaste for the joke, so in hindsight the slap wasn't really necessary. All it ended up doing was overshadowing the rest of the night, which saw some surprisingly diverse films and actors win for once - kind of a surprise considering how the Oscars has a pretty poor diversity track record. And as much as I look down on Rock at times, he actually did recover well from that incident. Word of advise for next time someone makes a tasteless joke about your wife at an award ceremony - either make a snide comment in response to the joke without any swearing, or better yet, wait until you get your award and then make a joke about him in response. NEVER bring physical violence into the equation.

Anyway, now I've got those two points out of the way, it's time to look at the categories from this year's ceremony!

Worst Picture - Blonde.

From everything I saw, Morbius was THE biggest contender for Razzie nominations, and it of course got nominated for this category, along with four others. The nominee in this category with the most nominations overall (eight in total) is Blonde, another exploitative movie in the same vein as The Haunting of Sharon Tate that this time focuses on Marilyn Monroe - like Morbius, it was also highly expected to get nominated in the first place. Another major contender is Disney's live-action remake of Pinnochio, which one of my friends (a major Disney fan) stopped watching after ten minutes due to how awful it was - it was also nominated for five other categories. Next is The King's Daughter, a bizarre film about King Louis XIII capturing a mermaid for the sake of gaining immortality (a thing that makes sense in you understand Japanese mermaid folklore, but doesn't work here) - "fortunately" for it, it has only received two other nominations. Finally, there's Good Mourning, a Machine Gun Kelly and Mod Sun "stoner comedy" project that scored 0% on Rotten Tomatoes and received six other nominations here.

This year, Blonde took the win for Worst Picture. It's an interesting win, as while it still has a Rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it isn't that low compared to some of the other films on the list. Plus, I know that a lot of people were banking on Morbius to win overall. But it's still a well-deserved win for Blonde - it's shallow, exploitative and sexist, with the message it tries to send out ringing hypocritical in the process. At least Morbius is an enjoyable film to watch despite its flaws, mainly in the "so bad it's good" manner. I remember a few people who would have preferred the equally offensive Haunting to have won over Cats a few years ago due to them seeing the latter as "so bad, it's good", but the similarities between Haunting and Blonde mean that this essentially makes up for that.

My main offense is that both the 365 Days sequels are not in this category, despite people highly suspecting they would be, due to them being tasteless sequels to an already tasteless movie that glorifies trafficking and sexual abuse. Oh well, at least it was nominated for two other categories, which I'll get to later. And Blonde is just as sexist and exploitative as well, so that also makes up for the absence.

Worst Director - Machine Gun Kelly and Mod Sun for Good Mourning.

Machine Gun Kelly and Mod Sun receive a joint nomination for directing Good Mourning. As for solo nominations, Andrew Dominik is nominated for directing Blonde, Daniel Espinosa is nominated for directing Morbius and Robert Zemeckis (whose career has really gone down the tubes in recent years) is nominated for directing Disney's Pinocchio. Another interesting to note is that Judd Apatow, most known for successful comedies such as Superbad, Pineapple Express, Knocked Up, The 40 Year Old Virgin and Funny People, has been nominated for The Bubble, which may be one of his first major missteps. Of course in the past, he was nominated for a Stinker's Bad Movie Awards for his screenplay for the mediocre Fun with Dick and Jane remake in 2005 and was placed in the Hall of Shame in 2009 by the Women Film Critics Circle Awards due to his questionable ways of portraying women in his films, but this is his first ever Razzie nomination.

MGK and Mod Sun "enjoyed" a joint win for this category. The whole movie comes across as some dire vanity project which doesn't even come across as the comedy that it's supposed to be. I mean, they not only star in it, but also star in it and write it - kind of similar to when Shane van Dyke wrote, directed and starred in the utterly abysmal Titanic II in 2010. In fact, last time I looked at Rotten Tomatoes, Good Mourning was still at 0%, which should warn you about the quality.

I will also note that this is not the first time a musician has "won" for Worst Director, as Sia "won" for her offensive film Music in 2021. Sure, she didn't star in it, but it was still an absolute mess. Maybe having musicians dabble in film directing is something that should be avoided in the future.

Worst Actor - Jared Leto as the titular character of Morbius.

After winning Worst Supporting Actor last year for his laughable performance as Paulo Gucci in the otherwise decent House of Gucci, Jared Leto has now been nominated for his role as the titular Morbius, another role in which he carried out some bizarre method acting for it. Tom Hanks also received his FIRST EVER Razzie nomination for his role as Geppetto in Pinocchio, a role in which he puts on a bizarre accent and thus played a major role in making my friend stop watching the movie. Next is Colson Baker (a.k.a. Machine Gun Kelly), more of a music artist by trade than an actor, nominated for his role as London Clash in his own movie Good Mourning. And then of course there's Razzie veteran Sylvester Stallone being nominated AGAIN, this time for his role in Samaritan as Joe Smith/Samaritan/Nemesis (?). One nomination I was heavily surprised by though was Pete Davidson for his voice role as the titular Marmaduke - mainly because I didn't even know they'd made another one recently after the live-action trainwreck from 2010 with Owen Wilson.

I mean, is it really a surprise that Leto won for the second time in a row? Pretty much everyone banking on the Razzies saw this one coming. His method acting was so laughably bad, just like in the role he won the Razzie for last year. Hanks was dreadful in his role, I will outright say, but Leto just outright overshadows him when it comes to bad acting. Overall, a category win that not only most Razzie fans (including myself) predicted, but was also well deserved.

Worst Actress - The...Razzies itself.

This was the category with the nominees I recognised the least. By that, I mean that I wasn't aware of these roles in the first place. Bryce Dallas Howard is a well-known actress and Jurassic World: Dominion was a known critical disappointment - she plays Claire Dearing in the movie. Meanwhile, Alicia Silverstone and Diane Keaton are also well-known actresses, but I was unfamiliar of their respective roles in The Requin as Jaelyn and Mack & Rita as Mackenzie "Mack" Martin/Rita. And I'm certainly not familiar with Kaya Scodelario, who plays Marie-Josèphe in The King's Daughter, though the film is also a major Razzie contender this year.

Though Blonde has been nominated for nearly every single other category at this year's Razzies, Ana de Armas, the actress who played Marilyn Monroe herself, was not nominated here due to critics seeing her as the one positive thing about the movie. Bizarrely enough though, she was nominated for an Oscar despite it still not being an outstanding performance, and it just makes the exclusion of Danielle Deadwyler for her outstanding role in Till even more ridiculous and further proof of the diversity issues with the Oscars - thank goodness that Michelle Yeoh ended up winning it in the end over Armas.

It should also be noted that Ryan Kiera Armstrong was originally nominated for her role as Charlene "Charlie" McGee in Firestarter, but was ultimately removed from the list after extreme public outcry. I think this was definitely the right thing - after all, getting underage actors involved in this sort of thing is extremely risky business and could definitely cross the line into bullying rather than simply saying "they were a bad actor". The only thing I will add though is that Maddie Ziegler still deserved her Razzie for her offensive role in Music as an autistic girl two years ago despite being neurotypical (besides, I think she was eighteen at the time anyway), though removing Armstrong from the nominees list this year is still the right move.

...Which is why this year, the Razzies ended up taking the win itself for the embarrassing and tasteless blunder, with their mascot Razz Berry giving the acceptance speech at the online ceremony. This was BY FAR the biggest surprise of the night - it turns out that voting still went ahead as normal, but they put themselves in the place of Armstrong and won by a landslide. But hey, I'm not complaining - it shows that they're willing to own up to the blunder, especially considering the Bruce Willis controversy from last year. I will also say that none of the other roles on this list are memorably bad like some of the other nominees in different categories, so I would not have had any strong opinions on them winning. Fortunately however, this one will certainly be a memorable win. ;)

Worst Supporting Actor - Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker in Elvis.

Two films dominated this list - both Mod Sun and Pete Davidson (again, but in a cameo role this time) from Good Mourning were nominated for their respective roles as Dylan and Berry, as were Xavier Samuel and Evan Williams from Blonde for their respective roles as Charles "Cass" Chaplin Jr. and Edward G. "Eddy" Robinson Jr.. But the biggest shock I got was Tom Hanks (again!) being nominated for his role as Colonel Tom Parker in the film Elvis. That film was a major critical darling, with Austin Butler in particular being praised for his role as Elvis Presley, and I feel that it was a much-needed return to form for Baz Luhrmann...up to the point in which I forgot that the same critics had also slated Hanks' performance in the same movie. And for good reason too. It sure seems that Hanks has either had a dud year or is starting to have his career derailed.

And of course the unthinkable has happened - Tom Hanks has actually WON his first Razzie ever, all for this category. Good films have been nominated for and won Razzie awards for this category in the past (Fahrenheit 11/9, Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm and House of Gucci being prime examples), and this is no exception. I think that a LOT of people out there thought that Hanks would never have receive a Razzie nomination itself, let alone a Razzie win. But I'm just going to say it outright at the risk of outrage - I think he's kind of overrated sometimes. Some of his film roles like in Toy Story and Saving Private Ryan are brilliant, but others like Forrest Gump should not have received the acclaim they did in the first place. Guess we'll just have to see what happens afterwards and whether he can keep his Hollywood darling status after this blunder.

Worst Supporting Actress - Adria Arjona as Martine Bancroft from Morbius.

I recognised the films in this category slightly more than I did for Worst Lead Actress. Adria Arjona are Lorraine Bracco are nominated for respective Razzie favourites Morbius and Pinocchio for their respective roles as Martine Bancroft and Sofia the Seagull. Meanwhile, I remember Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend being slated and being seen as a potential Razzie contender, and Mira Sorvino has been nominated for her role as Annita in it. I was not so familiar with The 355, which has Fan Bingbing and Penélope Cruz (likely the most famous actress in this category) nominated for their respective roles as Lin Mi Sheng and Graciela Rivera, though it should be pointed out that Fan Bingbing has also been nominated due to her role as the Mermaid in The King's Daughter, which has already popped up a few times at this awards ceremony.

Morbius took its second "win" with regard to Arjona this time round. This was likely the most forgettable win in my opinion, with the main thing standing being that she was named "Adriana" for some reason in the accompanying video, but as I said, I'm not familiar with these roles on the list anyway. Plus, Morbius itself is a memorable movie for all the wrong reasons and Arjona was legitimately bad in her role - though not to the same extent as Leto in his.

Worst Screen Couple - Tom Hanks and his latex-laden face (and ludicrous accent) in Elvis.

The main non-joke nominees are Machine Gun Kelly and Mod Sun for Good Mourning, due to not only starring in the film together, but also directing and writing it together, and both of the 365 Days sequels (I say "non-joke" due to the tragic reality of their existence and the horrific aspects of them). In fact, the nomination of "both real life characters (Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy) in the fallacious White House bedroom scene" from Blonde could also be a non-joke case due to the exploitativeness of the film, but the way that the Razzies wrote it down is slightly tongue-in-cheek. As is Andrew Dominik and his issues with women from the same movie, which is also written in a tongue-in-cheek manner in the Razzies website but is ultimately criticising a man for his misogynistic creative choices. What is most certainly a "joke" nominee though is Tom Hanks and his latex-laden face (and ludicrous accent) in Elvis, which is mainly just joking about a man's dreadful prosthetics and fake accent.

And for a SECOND time, Hanks takes a Razzie for the same role. I am just going to say outright that yes, the accent is indeed stupid. And it's not the first time he's done something like that either. Forrest Gump involves him putting on a stupid accent too, but people chose to fawn over that performance anyway because he was playing an "inspirational" autistic person - despite the fact that it's an extremely stereotypical portrayal of autistic people and insulting for autistic people like myself. In fact, there are MANY problems with that film that people overlook, but that would be deviating from this subject for now. What I will say is that any of these nominees would have been the right winner for this category anyway, and this combo certainly was.

Worst Remake, Rip-Off, Or Sequel - Disney's Pinocchio.

We have three sequels and three remakes here. For the sequels, both 365 Days: This Day and The Next 365 Days follow on from past Razzie winner 365 Days (obviously) while Jurassic World: Dominion is the third Jurassic World movie. Disney's Pinocchio is obviously a remake of the much better animated film from 1940, as well as an adaptation of the book of the same name. Firestarter is essentially an adaptation of a Stephen King novel, but is also a remake of the 1984 movie (which also did badly, but hey, at least it has a soundtrack by Tangerine Dream). Finally, Blonde is based on a book by Joyce Carol Oates, but is essentially a bad "remake" of Marilyn Monroe's life.

The 365 Days sequels did not win here, so unfortunately they did not win any awards at all. However, I am perfectly willing to accept Disney's Pinocchio as the actual winner of the category. It's yet another dire live-action remake of a Disney classic, following in the footsteps of duds like Beauty & The Beast, Mulan, Aladdin, The Lion King (even though that remake is still animated in a sense) and Dumbo (I am also willing to count Maleficent here too). Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket look unintentionally creepy (even creepier than the new Dumbo) and Hanks is of course overacting with a ridiculous accent. There's also the fact that it has the bad fortune of coming out around the same time of the Guilliamo del Toro version, which is downright fantastic and also extremely surprising with its take on the original story. That one definitely deserves the awards that it has received...while this one only deserves at least one Razzie.

I will also discuss my friend for a moment - she loves Disney movies, especially the animated types. She is not so fond of the live-action ones however. For instance, she actually cried when watching the Mulan remake due to how bad it was. The fact that she stopped watching this one after TEN MINUTES should be an indicator of how horrible the movie is. Definitely a Disney film that should be skipped altogether.

Worst Screenplay - Blonde (Andrew Dominik).

MGK and Mod Sun are once again nominated, this time for "writing" Good Mourning (yes, the Razzies put "written" in speech marks as well). Dominik also gets nominated again for writing Blonde, based on the "bio-novel" by Joyce Carol Oates (again, the Razzies put the quotation marks around "bio-novel"). Meanwhile we have some newcomers at this ceremony - Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless have been nominated for Morbius, while Emily Carmichael, Colin Treverrow and Derek Connolly have been nominated for Jurassic World: Dominion (Carmichael wrote the screenplay, Connolly wrote the story and Treverrow wrote both). Disney's Pinocchio is also nominated, with Robert Zemeckis making a return but Chris Weitz getting his first nomination at this year's awards (and according to the Razzies, the screenplay is not authorised by the Estate of Pinocchio's original writer Carlo Collodi for some reason).

Fitting that the last of the Worst awards should go to the first winner on this list, making it go full circle. Though the original book is very controversial itself with regard to its take on Monroe's life, it seems that the movie and its script heightened all of its flaws. The fact that Dominik also directed the film just adds salt into the wound, even if he didn't win that category in the end. It's clearly trying to be all "stylistic" and "arty", but is basically an outright exploitation film. Definitely up there with The Haunting of Sharon Tate with regard to bad taste and sexism towards its actress lead.

Razzie Redeemer Award - Colin Farrell for The Banshees of Inisherin.

To finish this off, I will mention the Razzie Redeemer Awards, the award that honours the good rather than the bad. Three nominees were here this time - Colin Farrell, who had a major blunder with the 2004 movie Alexander, for his role in The Banshees of Inisherin, regular Razzie nominee Mark Wahlberg for his role in Father Stu and Val Kilmer for his role in the Netflix documentary Val.

Farrell won this category, in what I feel is a well-deserved win. The film is just another masterpiece from Martin McDonagh, who has worked on other brilliant films such as In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. And Farrell is brilliant in his role too. That scene they showed where after a moment of awkward silence, he tries to insist that his friend loves him only for his former friend to say no is absolutely heartbreaking. I highly recommend you check this film out, along with the other McDonagh films I just mentioned.

Overall, a very interesting ceremony with some surprise wins, as well as an interesting distribution of awards. Blonde, Morbius and Elvis won two awards each (the latter film mainly for Tom Hanks) and Good Mourning, Disney's Pinocchio and the Razzies awards themselves won one award each. There were also many nominees that I didn't expect to see on the list, but ultimately made sense - Tom Hanks for his role as Colonel Tom Parker being a primary example.

As I said earlier, I feel that the 365 Days sequels should have been in the Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay categories (it would have even been nice if it had won a category) and I still think that the major dud Don't Worry Darling should have been nominated for some awards - I'm thinking Worst Picture, Worst Director (Olivia Wilde) and Worst Lead Actor (Harry Styles), given that Wilde cast Styles simply because they were dating at the time. That said, the more "positive" award shows like the Oscars, Annies, BAFTAs and Golden Globes screwed up BIG time by not nominating The Bad Guys for Best Animated Film despite its major critical and commercial success (plus the fact that it's a brilliant film anyway), and of course the Oscars made a MAJOR mistake in not nominating Deadwyler for Till, so it's not like only one award ceremony left something out.

Anyway, that concludes my Razzie review for this year. I'm interested to see what garbage makes it onto the nominees lists next time, and hopefully the Razzies doesn't make any mistakes with the nominations like with Armstrong next time around. Hope you enjoyed the ceremony just as much as I did and I'm curious to see other people's opinions on what they thought of the chosen winners as well. ;)

Seeing The London Christmas Lights 2022

This has been my fourth year seeing the Christmas lights with my mother in London. This is also the first time I used two different cameras - there was my digital one I usually use, but I recently got a smart phone with a camera installed on it. I uploaded the digital camera ones for this blog post because they were the easiest ones to upload, but hopefully I can upload the phone ones in the future.

It was quite a different experience this year compared to the last two years due to not so many COVID-19 regulations being in place. Adding the fact that the visit was much closer to Christmas Eve than in previous years and what we encountered was a busier London with more people out. That said, it did not stop us from getting a good look at what we wanted to see, as well as some new decorations.

Waterloo Station had what I consider to be a guilty pleasure of mine - a Haribo-themed Christmas tree. Extremely commercial, but for some reason I can't help but love it. Especially with the sweets being used as decorations. There was also a pretty banging Christmas tune playing at the same time.

We took the train to Green Park, where one of the first things we encountered was the Ritz Hotel decked up.

Bond Street had very different lights this year. For the past many years, they've have the same peacock-styled ones, but this time they had crowns. This is what the street looks like in the daytime.

And this is one of the lights at nighttime.

Fortnam & Mason's had impressive window displays as always. This year, the main theme was sayings and words of advice paired with images of a bellboy trying to get tasks done before Christmas, with a cat and mouse helping him the whole time. This one is paired with the saying "don't give the game (or cat) away".

And this is one of the bellboy making mince pies while a cow watches from the window.

What I particularly liked was the small little details involving the mice. Here is one decorating a bauble.

And here is one ready to post mail off.

The advent windows are still at the top of the building as usual, and I was able to get plenty of photos of them at nighttime.

Outside the churchyard was this Christmas tree. Interestingly enough, the lights on it showed up better on my camera during the day than during the night.

Waterstone's was dressed up for Christmas as usual. Though the windows were going through some revamping at the time, they were still able to have this amazing model of Raymond Briggs's Snowman outside on top of the entrance.

They also had a model of the Snowman inside with penguin toys underneath him. Not sure how penguins were able to appear in the Arctic in those films, but they still look cute.

And of course they had the Christmas tree in the Children's books section as always. The sweets are always a nice touch to it, and the reindeer head was a humorous addition. Unfortunately, this is the only good picture I got without people's faces in it where I could easily crop it, but hopefully it still works.

There was also a smaller one, which looked just as lovely with its baubles on.

On a less Christmassy note, they were celebrating the release of the recent Matilda movie with an installation set up to look like Miss Trunchbull's office. Obviously not a place you'd want to visit in real life given her nasty personality, but that chocolate cake looks so yummy. No wonder Bruce Bogtrotter nicked a slice from it.

It was in Waterstone's that I had a hot chocolate with a mince pie brownie. There was more mincemeat in it than chocolate, but it had a nice gooey texture and it was something festive and different to try for a change.

This is both my selection and my Mum's selection together. My hot chocolate did accidentally overflow, but it didn't stop me enjoying it!

After looking round Waterstone's and taking more photos there, we headed out. The Piccadilly angel models were exactly the same as last time, but it didn't stop me from capturing them on camera.

Regent Street also uses the same angel models, but again, it's nice to have a gander at them.

Barbour had a Paddington-themed display, and given my love for the character, I couldn't ignore the opportunity to take photos at all.

On the way to Carnaby Street, I encountered this interesting model of a reindeer in a shop window, so I had to take a photo of that as well.

I've always loved how Carnaby Street looks at Christmas time, but they really topped themselves this year. To celebrate their anniversary, they had a selection of the many different lights they've used over the past years.

There were the marine animals from 2019 and the inspirational quotes from 2020, but they also had the Rolling Stones lips, which I hadn't seen up there before. I particularly liked these giant robin models.

There was also this rather amusing snowman model hanging in the air.

Conduit Street had these very pretty holly decorations. Compared to the other Christmas lights and decorations, they were a lot more modest, but that was partly why they were some of my favourites from this year.

Oxford Street also had modest decorations, in this case the nice star decorations from last year.

The lights on the buildings next to them really helped to add something to them too.

To celebrate their anniversary, John Lewis has been putting up models of teddy bears in their stores, both large and small. The window display in London was particularly impressive, such as with this Christmas tree made up of a stack of them.

There also seemed to be a common pattern of some of the teddy bears tripping over and falling on their backs. This is just one of them.

There were some things I didn't get to take photos of due to running out of time and having a train to catch, such as the Selfridge's store windows, but that can always be visited after Christmas.

This year was pretty chaotic for me, especially with regard to my mental health and anxiety issues. However, there's always something calming about seeing the Christmas lights in London every year, even if the crowds are chaotic and the shops busy. For me, Christmas is about unwinding from the year as a whole and just taking a gander at the world getting dressed up in the festive spirit is one way I do it.