Datchelor carols in the heart of London

Those of my regular blog readers will remember that some years ago I attended the 125th anniversary of my old school's old girls club in London. It was such a lavish occasion held at the Clothworker's Hall in London. If you missed that post this is the link

My wonderful old school sadly shut its doors forever in 1981 and every year since then there has been an annual carol service held at St. Olave's Church in London. This article is a lovely write up of my old school.  

Every year I have tried to make the service and every year something has come up or the weather has been awful (last year it snowed) but this year I was finally able to make it. I was originally going with my Mum and my BF Karen (both fellow Datchlelor old girls). Sadly both had to pull out but I was determined to go anyway so I set off on Sunday afternoon to make the journey to St.Olave's church.

This amazing medieval church is nestle between modern skyscrapers round the block from Tower Hill tube.

This road name had me giggling to myself.

How unassuming is the entrance to the church yard.....but how cool are those skulls! Charles Dickens described this as "The churchyard of St. Ghastly grim!"

I did study a bit of Latin but even my husband who has an excellent command of Latin struggled to translate this. Google came to the rescue and it means"For me to live is Christ, to die is gain". The date is 1658 when the church yard was rebuilt. Samuel Pepys walked though this gateway into the tiny churchyard, with his wife on his way to the Sunday service. It is an incredible hidden gem in London and the church is thought to date from 1056 however the original building was wooden. It was rebuilt in 1450 in stone and survived the great fire of London in 1666. 300 plague victims were buried here which is why the South entrance is below ground level. The church was severely damaged by bombing in the 2nd world war but enough survived to restore it to full glory in the 1950s. This is now a listed building. 

 Samuel Pepys and his wife are buried in the church. 

He even has a street named after him

This was the entrance I took to the church

a lovely Christmas tree greeted me in the porch

and then the glorious interior was revealed.

We sung some wonderful carols and yes us Datchelor girls do sing rather tunefully.

Sadly Moira got stuck in a traffic jam so wasn't able to lead the service but in true resourceful Datchelor spirit the organizers stepped in and lead a wonderful service.
The opening carol was one of my Datchelor favourites, "Hills of the North rejoice" and our voices lifted into the air of this medieval wonder of a church.
There were Christmas readings, prayers, Hosanna was sung by the Old girls' choir, a fun prize giving (I won a little prize for attending for the first time) and we finished the service with the rousing "O come all ye faithful".

It really was the most splendid way to spend the 2nd Sunday in advent afternoon. It brought back so many fond memories of my Christmas years at Mary Datchelor from 1972-1979. Memories of Dorcas Day (a charity day where we filled boxes for good causes), knitting squares for blankets, copying carols into our Christmas Carol books, decorating our form rooms (which usually involved lots of tinsel), having a "post box" in every form room to put our Christmas cards, singing such wonderful carols and the piece de resistance; Christmas dinner when the Boar's Head carol was sung during a procession through the dining room. Datchelor girls have very good singing voices!

After the service there was welcome tea and mince pies and lots of chat. I didn't see anyone there from my year but it was fun to exchange memories with several lovely old girls and old teachers I spoke to.

As I stepped out of the church to come home, the church yard looked even more beautiful to me in the crisp darkness.

As I made my way back to Tower Hill tube London was looking her usual stunning self.

 The Shard was lit up on the skyline.

Looking across to the Tower of London made me feel so proud to be a part of this wonderful city.

 There is just so much history here.

Even the tube entrance was warm and inviting on a crisp December evening.

So my card today just had to be one to remember such a joyful occasion.

The image is one of my old Nicecrane (sadly no longer trading) digis. I thought the joy die, carol sheet of O come all ye faithful and the deers (or harts as deer were known in medieval times and Hart Street is where St.Olave's is situated) were very appropriate. The red and green colour scheme reminds me of the trees inside the church.
This card is up for sale at Dotty's Teahouse, Carshalton High Street, SM5 2AE

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Card Mania 4/5 Christmas
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas anything goes
ABC Christmas 3/3 Y is for your favourite things mine just has to be the joy of Christmas.
Crafty Catz 2/3  anything goes
Moving along with the times 2/3 anything Christmas
Crimbo crackers 3/3 anything goes
Winter wonderland 3/3 anything goes
Alphabet challenge 1/3 s is for season's greetings
Time out 1/3 Joyful

I would like to thank the organizers for rekindling my Datchelor Christmas school memories again. I really hope to make the service again next year.

Thanks for stopping by today,

Billy my cat has managed to finish typing up his annual Christmas post which I know you all enjoy. He will be here tomorrow to share the mayhem of the annual arrival of the Christmas trees 😼

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Hyde Park's gems

My Hb has some leave to use up from work and we decided to have a few days out this week. On Monday we went to Hyde Park and followed a self guided walk I found on line. Although we are born and bred Londoners and my Hb works in the city,  we learnt so much. We found out that Hyde Park was acquired by Henry VIII as a deer park in 1536 and it was opened to the public in 1637 by Charles 1. The Serpentine lake was not created until 1730, by Queen Caroline, and it was created from the existing 6 fish ponds.

The weather was kind, cloudy mostly but warm with sunny intervals. The walk started at Hyde Park corner

and took us through parts we had not visited before.

We visited the Diana water memorial where children were dipping in their toes

and walked a whole circuit of the Serpentine.

 We spotted lots of swans and other wildlife.

We even took out a pedalo and whiled away a pleasant hour on the water.

We enjoyed a nice cup of tea at the cafe which looked out across the Serpentine.

The last part of our walk took us across to speakers corner via the old Police House 

and the mosaic which marks the site of the old Reformer's tree which celebrates the right of people to protest.

and we finished off at Marble Arch, which until that day I have never actually crossed the road to look at. It was another grand entrance to Hyde Park erected there in 1851 but had stood for 20 years previously as the main gateway at Buckingham Palace. It was moved to make way for a new wing.

The gates there are stunning.

 We had a quick glimpse at Oxford Street and then made our way back to Victoria to catch the train home. 

It's amazing how we miss the details when we live so near to somewhere. It was the most delightful and relaxing day out.

My card today is new Mr Caterpillar Visible Image stamps birthday card I have made for Dotty's Teahouse.

My very laid back, relaxed Mr Caterpillar

was coloured with Promarkers.

I die cut some clouds and stars and stamped the birthday sentiment.

Here he is in close up

You can see he and the stars have a glittery sparkle and that he is wearing his Glossy Accents glasses (of course 😉)

He will be up for sale today together with some other new Wonderland Cards. Dotty's is in the High Street, Carshalton, Surrey, SM5 2EP. My first edition Wonderland cards sold out very quickly and I am hoping this new edition will be just as popular. 

I wold like to enter him into the following challenges;

Passion for Promarkers 1/3 happy birthday
Creative Moments 1/3 anything goes
I love Promarkers 1/3 anything goes
Allsorts 2/3 from boys to men

Let's craft and create 2/3 anything goes/lots of layers
Dies R us 1/3 You're a star
Double D challenges 1/3 the moon and/or the stars
TIME out 1/3 be bright

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Ovo by Cirque du Soleil

2 weeks ago my Hb and I attended a performance of OVO by Cirque du Soleil. OMGoodness me it was truly amazing. We have always wanted to see them perform but for various reasons have never got our act together to get tickets.

Even just visiting the Royal Albert Hall is delightful, it was my first ever visit.
The Albert Memorial opposite the hall has recently been restored and even on a very wet January day shone out like a beacon. Victoria must have loved her Albert very much...and she obviously had a lot of money to spare in those days! I am sure that she would be delighted to see the hall and area still visited by many people from all around the globe.

 The carvings around the memorial are incredibly detailed.

The Hall is also undergoing some renovation work and when finished will be stunning

Inside has already been renovated and is full of red carpet and lush furnishings and of course pictures and statues of Queen Victoria

 and Prince Albert

 We had seats in a box in the Grand Tier

and when we stepped through to our seats this was our view

the ceiling had eggs suspended too

To sum up the "story" it is all about an egg, a ladybird (bug to my USA friends) and a fly. It's very funny and the athleticism of the performers just blew us away. I thought I would share a few photos as incredibly they are quite happy for you to take them as long as there is no flash.

Some are a little blurry due to the lack of light but I actually think it adds to the atmosphere.

 I decided to make myself a tag as a "Moment" for Jane's Journal.

 I was lucky enough to be the Christmas winner over at Rubber Dance stamps and had just received lots of goodies. I chose these 3 stamps which I though were perfect...an egg, some delicate flowers from the bird set and the fab butterfly girl,

I used all the colours from the performance on the base by blending my distress inks and also added some stencilling. The delicate foliage was then stamped with archival inks. 

I fussy cut out the butterfly girl and added a wink of stella sparkle to her wings. She reminds me of the performers and I stood her on the egg, which I also fussy cut out.  I die cut some hearts to hold the egg with lots of love and added some very appropriate chit chat words.

Here are a couple of close ups

And one last one to try to show the sparkle on her wings.

I would like to enter my tag into the following challenges

Rubber dance colour theme/use hearts I went with the hearts.
Rubber dance forever challenge I used all Rubber Dance stamps on my tag
Penny Black and more Love hearts and flowers
Pile it on 3D embellishments my corrugated card hearts
Artistic Inspirations 1/3 anything goes
Simon says stamp Monday love is in the air
Deep Ocean love is all around
Simon says stamp Wednesday It must be love
Frilly and Funkie 1/3 all you need is love
Craft Stamper take it make it 2/3 February

It really was a most memorable show and really cheered up the most wet, chilly January Saturday.
 If you get a chance to see it you will not be disappointed. It is an absolute treat.

Before I go a quick heads up that Visible Image Stamps are back on your TV screens this weekend (10/11 Feb). The shows are on Create and Craft TV (channels SKY 674, Freeview 23, Virgin 748 and others) Saturday at 4pm (UK time) and Sunday 10am (UK time) They are launching the Zodiac stamps with some fab demos by Mark and Pauline...

and I will be waving at some of my samples 😁

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave me.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x