We got back from the US on Saturday morning, or at least I did. Steph got delayed by about 3 hours, which was awkward as I didn’t have a key. My key was with the cat sitters. I tried to just go relax at the office and drop off some stuff at my desk, but it happened to be the weekend they were doing tests of the power system. I went to the other building and was able to take a long hot shower and work in the lobby for a while. Steph eventually showed up and I had enough time to unpack and eat a little something.

Shortly after that I had dress rehearsal for the West End Musical Choir. This was the rehearsal for all the off book performances, and it was a lot of people, around 400 I would guess. I got a really good seat; right at the intersection of the four sections. It was unusual to hear all the sections at the same time, although it also made it a bit hard on songs that had the sections going at different times. I really enjoyed the rehearsal, but was pretty dead by the end of it, as I didn’t sleep much on the flight. I slept amazingly well Saturday night.

Sunday, We had a mostly chill day, doing chores and getting settled back in with the kitties. We got everything prepped for sending our passports in for renewal. We also started planning 2024 in more detail.

Monday I was back to work, but I had a double performance with the choir at St. Pancras station. It was so much fun performing. Steph came to watch the first one, and by the second round it was getting pretty cold. I went to the pub for a drink with some of the other choir members afterwards and they were talking about it being bake off week.

That made me decide to do a triple batch of blueberry scones, Steph’s recipe, on Tuesday evening. I didn’t do it quite right, but they still turned out really tasty. They just weren’t very pretty, since the blueberries had slightly melted and the color hard gotten mixed into the dough a bit more.

People really enjoyed them at rehearsal on Wednesday, where we ran through all the songs and made a nice video.

Everyone loved the scones at choir, but they didn’t get finished off. I took them to Dive Club, which wasn’t actually a club meeting. We each had a few at dive club, and I was left with four that I took to share with people at work on Thursday.

Thursday morning I tried out a cycle class at Better for the first time and it went really well. It wasn’t as hard as I was expecting, but my heart rate still got pretty high. Thursday and Friday were chill days at home, with more chores. We did get some snow on Friday, Dec 1.

Saturday we went to have grilled cheese with Nancy and Punit at their new place. We met their two week old baby, Atlas, who was tiny. They had made some amazing pickled onion, and got a nice bread and some basic bread from the store. It was fun trying the different grilled cheeses. I made a lentil soup to go with it that turned out better than I was expecting.

Saturday evening I got on BGA to play with Adam and Timtimtimtimtimtim. We played Gaia Project and then Feast for Odin. I didn’t do well in either, as I haven’t been playing as many board games for a good while. It was nice playing with them, but the remote board game playing isn’t nearly as fun as playing in person. It was hard to have meaningful conversations while playing.

Sunday Steph and I decided to go to Harrods. We got there before they openned so we went to the nearby nut shop. We had ramen in the dining hall, then went around the food halls and picked up some traditional holiday fare. We got a Christmas cake and some mince pies. We also had to stop by the Cheese station and chocolate room. We took a look through their stationary, but none of the cards really struck our fancy.

We headed back home before I headed to the V&A for another choir performance. The room we performed in was the Rafael Cartoons Gallery, and it was a huge vaulted ceiling surrounded by massive gorgeous paintings. It was a perfect space to perform in. We hung out in the green room for two hours and tried out the new songs there. Silent Night and Joy to the World went well, and I dropped both a full octave from the other men. The one that was difficult was All I Want for Christmas is You. That song was hard to get the tune right and the words are harder than I would have expected. I never fully got it right. The first performance didn’t have many people there yet, but there was a nice couple in the back swing dancing. The second performance was packed, and they filled up half of that massive room. At the end some of the choir members went out into the audience and got everyone dancing. It was a great time. The third was fewer people and slightly more tired and subdued than the second, but still a great time.