An abundance of activity rolls non-stop through Christmas

Christmas Eve, 11:15 pm. I'm sitting in the second row of St. George's chapel at Windsor Castle, enveloped by comforting Gothic architecture and soothed by the angelic voices of the boys' choir. It's peaceful and calm, as if the whole world has ceased turning on its axis for a little bit so that everyone can concentrate on their spiritual well being. It was, I think, the first such moment of peace I'd had in ages. As ever, the Christmas season was a roller coaster ride of work hard, play harder twists and turns that didn't run out until that clerical interlude.

The Friday before Christmas was typical of the seasonal routine. At my desk first thing checking emails and sorting through the usual round of political issues. On the train by 10:26 in order to make a Harley Street doctor's appointment at noon. My last visit to my plastic surgeon ... I am, officially, complete. I was a bit sad to say goodbye; he's been a dependable and steady authority figure in my life for 18 months. I don't get many of those...

Then off to a photo shoot at Health and Fitness magazine, who will be including me in a feature on breast cancer in an upcoming issue. I've organised and accompanied executives on scores of photo shoots in my years as a PR executive, but have never been the subject myself. This was a high end affair, with a hair and make up artist there to spend 40 minutes on me before I ever got in front of the camera. A full make over in the middle of the work day ... This was one of those surreal times when I found myself thinking: I can't believe I get paid for doing this. I did, of course, mention my benevolent employer frequently in the interview, so hopefully making the effort pay off for us all.

As I was looking absolutely fabulous, I was relieved I had something better to do than return to my desk. Off instead to Maze, where I met one of my colleagues from the publishing industry for a catch up on work issues, mixed with a delightful late lunch. Having reviewed Maze once already in this blog I won't go into details. Suffice it to say that the experience was just as wonderful as my first time, and the place definitely belongs in the top 3 restaurants at which I've dined this year.

Since we started to so late, we didn't push back from the table 'til 5. Giving me an hour to kill before meeting my mother and a friend for a pre-theatre dinner at 6. (Yes, perhaps not the best planning.) I felt as stuffed as the proverbial Christmas goose, so I took a meandering stroll from Grosvenor Square to Green Park. This area, called Mayfair, is one of London's prettiest parts, especially at Christmas. Mostly Georgian and Regency in architecture, it retains many old shop fronts and period details. Christmas lights are tasteful, garlands drape festively over narrow shopping streets, the darkness allows you to peer into the brightly lit drawing rooms of gracious mansions now used as offices; this is as close to a Dickens scene as you're going to get in modern London.

Next to Waterloo, where I met my mother and the news that British Airport Authority staff were planning a strike on the day next month I'm flying off for my Caribbean holiday. Bastards. God Bless American Airlines, who changed my outbound flight to an earlier date in between planned strike actions. Now I just need to arrange to work in New York for a couple of days before catching the Barbados hop.

Crisis averted, we moved across the street to the Waterloo Bar and Kitchen for our pre-theatre dinner. Still completely sated by the lunch that I'd barely started digesting, I only managed a plate of smoked salmon, for politeness' sake. But the reports from my Mom and Hillary on their meals were excellent, and all the dishes coming out of the kitchen looked good. I'll have to try this place again in the future. When you commute in and out of Waterloo, finding good restaurants in this area is essential.

On to the pantomime at the Old Vic. Despite living in the UK for 13 years now, this was my first outing to this classic British tradition. Not having a child to take, it wasn't until famous wit and Renaissance man Stephen Fry wrote one that I was inspired to get tickets for myself. Panto is a rather odd combination of musical theatre, fairy tales, burlesque and double entendre. The shows are drawn from a familiar short list: Cinderella, Jack & the Beanstalk, Aladdin, etc. Though the plots are traditional, the jokes are rewritten every year to reflect popular culture. For example, our Cinderella's ball was a reality show in which the winning princess would be chosen by audience phone in. There's a whole audience response factor that almost reminds you of attending church; everyone knows what to do and automatically gives their responses ("He's behind you", "Cake!") when prompted.

Most bizarre to American eyes is the tradition of cross dressing, which the Brits don't see as sexual ... simply funny. There's always a big, brash female role played by men in drag, and the young hero is often a woman. In our case, though Prince Charming was comfortingly male, the wicked step sisters (dubbed Dolce and Gabbana) were men. Radio personality and writer Sandy Tostvig played the male roles of narrator and Lord Chamberlain. Yes, it was funny. But if you didn't grow up with it, definitely a bit strange and very foreign.

Roll on the weekend, filled with Christmas prep. We were at Waitrose for the big grocery shop when the store opened at 8am on Saturday. By the time we left 90 minutes later, every cart was in use, the whole shopping area was packed with people and my account was £200 lighter. In a country where a fresh turkey breast costs £29, it's not as difficult as you'd think to wrack up that kind of grocery bill.

Back to work on Monday. With most of the world taking holiday I had one phone call, no meetings and hours of quiet. Which meant that I actually cleared my 484-item email backlog, ending the day with everything filed neatly and my to do list waiting for me on the 27th. (I've always considered it one of the tragedies of modern communications that we now get so much stuff that reading and sorting mail has become a major accomplishment.)

And thus back to Monday night at Windsor Castle. Our fantastic seats were due to Mom, who's always been fanatical about getting in line early for such events. We were sixth in the queue and stood outside the Henry VIII gate for an hour and 10 minutes for the privilege of being amongst the first into the chapel. It was worth the cold: services at St. George's deserve a good view as well as open ears.

This is the night for full pomp and pageantry. The choirboys are in their vivid red gowns with white ruffs around their necks. Ushers in red and black cassocks with rich black tassels and braid work, straight out of Jane Austen. And the celebrants wear white and gold robes stiff with embroidery, metallic threads glinting beneath the lights. All the best props are out ... towering Georgian candlesticks polished to a reflective peak, solid gold chalices engraved with the monograms of previous kings. In front of the altar, a beautiful manger scene sculpted from terra cotta in a modern, middle Eastern style. At the start of the service, the manger was empty; the vicar of St. George's makes a big show of placing the baby in the manger as part of the entry procession. Throughout, one of the best choirs in the land delivered on some of the richest and most majestic music in church tradition. All within one of the finest architectural settings possible.

I am ambivalent about religion. The intellectual in me finds the stories on which it's based unlikely at best, and at worst sees in it the root of most of the world's wars and prejudices. On a night like this, however, I am reminded that it can also bring out the best in mankind, from soaring Gothic fan vaults and delicate melodic counterpoint to the crazy idea that we should all be nice to each other. Thus I'm not particularly bothered whether we're here to commemorate something that really happened, or a bundle of myths whipped up by Middle Eastern radicals for their own political ends. The drama, sounds and sights of the ceremony create a marvelous sense of stillness and inner peace. After the madness of the holiday season, this is just what the doctor ... or the deity ... ordered.

Office Parties are England's Christmas "USP"

I remember being bitterly disappointed with Christmas in England when I spent my first December in the country. Thanks to Charles Dickens, legends of carolers and wassail, and hundreds of Christmas cards that looked like illustrations from Jane Austen novels, most Americans figure that England must be the font of all good holiday cheer. Perhaps I didn't really expect capering children dragging the yule log across a snowy green to the manor house, but I thought I'd see something close.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I realised that the British Christmas is a pale shadow of the American celebration, and all those pretty traditions we Americans imagine happening in the old country are mostly consigned to history. The English don't really decorate the outsides of their homes (though Christmas lights are catching on), they don't do Christmas baking, and they don't put their trees up 'til late in the month.  Their town centres and shop windows ... even London's ... fall behind most American small towns. If you're used to the holidays in the States, it's all quite disappointing.

There's one exception: the office Christmas party. In America, this is rarely an official thing, and rarely funded by the company. A team might get together for drinks one night after work, or a generous boss might host a pot luck and gift exchange. But in England, the office party is an institution ... practically a workers' right that would bring on high protest if cancelled. It's funded by the company, can often be lavish, is always alcohol sodden and may sometimes trigger outrageous couplings and legendary embarrassments. These are very big deals. In the past 13 years I've been to balls at country houses and museums, wild times in nightclubs, ice skating inside a Georgian monument and a lot of very long, very boozy lunches. If you work at a large corporation, you can really hit the jackpot, as you're likely to be part of multiple teams, all of which are hosting some sort of festivity.

One of my great joys as a boss, therefore, is to host my team Christmas party. And though I do get invited to a variety, this one is always my favourite. For the past four years I've co-hosted it with my PR agency, the one constant as both my remit and employees have changed. Sadly, this might be the last year. As my team grows ever bigger, I'm not sure I can afford such a serious party. (We weighed in at 21 this year.)

Conscious that in previous years the wine-sodden-lunch-followed-by-evening-in-cocktail-lounge format had endangered livers, we thought we'd throw in some physical activity this year to vary the pace. Thus we ended up at All Star Lanes, a private bowling alley, American diner-themed restaurant and cocktail lounge in West London. I was a little hesitant about the bowling idea, but let the planners at the agency get on with it. And how right they were. I haven't been bowling since I was 20 (and am just as dreadful at it now as I was then), but it turned out to be a perfect event for a spot of team building. The venue is beautifully maintained and extremely authentic; were it not for the accents I wouldn't have been surprised to emerge into Michigan or Ohio when I walked out the door.

After the bit of exercise it was back to the seasonal standby of drinking a lot while exchanging gifts. We dined at the bowling alley; ironically, off a set menu that offered a variety of sophisticated choices. Smoked salmon salads and fish stew are all very well, but in that atmosphere I was actually dying for a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake.

We were on our way to our next venue by 7, opening up space for more revellers to come in behind us. Next up, the sophisticated surroundings of The Gore Hotel bar. A conversion of a grand Edwardian house in the neighbourhood around the Albert Hall, the high ceilings, wood panelling and portraits on the wall might have given the impression that Oscar Wilde was about to stroll in, were it not for the hip dance tracks playing over the sound system. Fortunately, they pulled off that difficult trick of keeping the music loud enough to hear, but not so high that you're yelling to make conversation.

We started here with a round of champagne toasts, before heading into a list of cocktails that was probably quite unwise. Raspberry mohitos may taste good, but they're probably not something you want to be adding on top of an evening of wine. Fortunately, common sense took over this year. Most of my direct team had called it a night by 10, leaving me with just two direct reports and my agency staff. I decided to head for my last direct train home, no doubt saving myself from some serious peril. Those I left behind pushed on 'til 3am, evidently doing a fine job at singing the entire repertoire of Bond theme tunes to the rest of the bar.

Ah, to be young again...

A Good Boss is a Hard Thing to Find (And Worth Celebrating at Conran's Best)

Good bosses are rare. This problem seems particularly acute in corporate communications, where you're just as likely to get some wandering executive in need of a temporary posting, who has no experience but is friends with the CEO and "good with people", than you are to get someone who's worked through the ranks and actually knows what he's doing. Challenges are exacerbated as you move up the ladder.

Being a boss is hard, but is somehow easier when you're managing very junior employees. Things get complicated when both boss and employee get quite senior. Who should do what for whom? I've had a long succession of bosses who are pleasant, but don't know much more than me and can't teach me much, so have just let me get on with things. This is a vast improvement on people who don't know much more than me but meddle and micro-manage; I've had those, too. But the Holy Grail of senior-level bosses is someone who has a light touch, but gives you clear insight when you need it, clears blockages from your path and has a lot to teach you.

I haven't had that kind of boss since leaving Dallas eight years ago. Then I got lucky in June. Then unlucky in October, when she announced her pregnancy. Today was her leaving lunch. Thanks to generous European leave policies, she'll now be gone for longer than she's been my boss. And I'm on to boss no. 7 in my five years with my current company. (To be fair, he shows great promise.)

My depression at my current boss' departure was assuaged somewhat by a lovely send-off lunch today at Orrery on Marylebone High Street. This is, I think, one of the better "occasion" restaurants in London. The bright, airy atmosphere with big windows overlooking an 18th century churchyard provides a comfortable venue, big enough to generate a bit of buzz but not so crowded that you can't hear each other. We had a large, round table at the back of the long, narrow room (a gallery, really) and filled it with a bunch of witty and amusing female colleagues. A delightful time, marred only by the fact that we're a diligent bunch and were all scurrying back to the office by 2.

Orrery is probably the best in the stable of Conran-owned restaurants, and actually sits above the Conran shop at the top of Marylebone High Street. Ten years ago Conran seemed to dominate the culinary Top 10 list. These days he's ceded his restaurant kingship to Gordon Ramsey, but Orrery is certainly worthy of a slot on anyone's list of best spots for business lunches.

As with so much of top cuisine in London, the menu and most of the serving staff are resolutely French. But it's presented with a light touch in style, architecture and density of dishes. Eating here is a treat, but doesn't have to feel as "worthy" as some of the bigger names.

Nor does it have to be as expensive. Orrery does a great set price menu: Three courses for £30. For a quality restaurant in London, this is a steal ... and priced well below their a la carte menu. Going set menu doesn't mean you skimp on options, with an amuse bouche of chickpea mousse followed by three possibilities for each course. I was feeling resolutely autumnal and went for the game terrine followed by pigeon. The other main course options, beef or sea bass, also looked excellent.

In addition to its cozy Marylebone High Street location, Orrery is probably best known for its cheese board. It is the best I've had in London, with a staggering variety and a cheese steward who can guide you through it with deft expertise. As a goat cheese fan, I let him make me up a plate from their 15 different varieties. The selection is presented in a circle, moving from mildest flavour to strongest, with clear explanations about each cheese's name and region of origin. I defy anyone to remember their list, but it's very impressive at the time.

Thus ended a fitting celebration in an above average restaurant for an above average boss. Here's hoping she finds childbirth as painless and easy as today's service, and she comes back at the appointed time to re-join our merry team.

Can comfort food be gourmet food? In Luxembourg, quite possibly.

Unfortunately, I have never been one of those delicate types that pushes away a half-eaten plate and sighs, "oh, that's just too rich to finish." Nor, to my regret, am I the type who can hardly make a dent in generous servings of hearty, stick-to-your-ribs fare. Such delicate eaters probably wouldn't have liked my weekend in Luxembourg and Germany.

I, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed the lashings of comfort food. Though I was glad I didn't stay for too long, and I did actually crave vegetables when I got home. A dangerous place for big appetites.

Fresh bread seemed to be giving off its fresh compelling aroma everywhere, and it was all of the same quality you associate with France. Christmas markets featured stalls groaning with chocolates, cakes and gingerbread, and upscale pastry shops showed off windows of fanciful creations. I managed to skip both of these ... the savoury fare was so substantial that even I didn't have room for sweets. A classic example: my lunch of veal stew in a cream sauce with home made spaetzle in the Ratskeller restaurant in Trier. I find these small German dumplings so tasty I'll order just about anything on a menu that comes with them. The veal was an excellent choice, and with a glass of red wine on the side you're set up to face an afternoon hiking through the cold. Or just about any other rigorous exercise. (What I really wanted was a nap, but I resisted that, along with the cakes.)

The finest meal of the trip was a special night out in Luxembourg city at a restaurant called Mansfeld. It's in the heart of the old town that lies in a deep crag along a river. An upper town, filled with bank headquarters and the Grand Duke's palace, sits on the promontory above. Mansfeld is in a historic house and has a lovely balance of design: A sleek modern entry and bar area, black with blue lighting, leads off into dining rooms in wooden paneled rooms that evoke the 17th century.

Clearly, the Luxembourgers must not eat like this every day, or they'd be the fattest people in Europe.

The menu is seasonal, and my meal was a classic winter warmer. We started out with the pan fried fois gras, recommended so highly by my friends I really couldn't say no. I can be a bit ambivalent about fois gras, but this was absolutely perfect. The meat lay on top of slices of mango, and was surrounded by a reduction of sharp, sweet balsamic vinegar. The fruit and sauce were a perfect complement to richness of the liver. Onward to venison stew in a rich red wine sauce, cooked so long that the meat fell apart under my fork. Strong flavours, but magnificent, especially with an extremely robust and fruity pomerol to wash it down. The stew came with a side of ... yes, more ... fois gras "lasagne". Slivers of fois gras and forest mushrooms laid atop of pasta sheets, covered with a bit of cream sauce. Again, a perfect balance of flavours going on, as the sharpness of the venison and red wine cut down the richness of the fois gras and cream. Of course, nothing could cut down how bad this combo was for the diet.

Cora and Didier both had the lamb, which looked good but they reported was overcooked.

On to dessert. And after all that warming, comforting food, why break the trend? Bring on the cheesecake. This was a quite exceptional version however, light and fluffy with a tang approaching sour cream and served with a lavender & citrus sorbet. Exactly what was needed to relegate all those strong tastes of the previous courses and settle everything down. I did have a taste of Cora's chocolate fondant, which was also a lovely choice ... though would have been too much on top of my flavoursome meal.

Clearly, the Luxembourgers must not eat like this every day, or they'd be the fattest people in Europe. But they ... or at least the chefs at Mansfeld ... know how to pull out all the stops for a special treat.

No contest: Germans take the top prize for Christmas experience

Fans of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia will remember the magic wood in The Magician's Nephew. It was a strange, quiet place that was nowhere in itself, yet was the gateway to hundreds of other worlds if you jumped into one of the pools beneath the trees. I find myself thinking of that place as I visit Luxembourg, a tiny spot on the map that seems most noteworthy for being a crossing over point to other places.

We were over the German border in 20 minutes yesterday. Today, the same driving time took us to France. We spent more time in traffic approaching central Trier, in fact, than we'd spent getting to another country.

Our objective for the day was Trier's Christmas market. But it's worth noting that this city has plenty more to recommend it. It was the Northern capital of the Roman empire and has some great ruins, notably its impressive "porta negra", a multi-arched colossus of a city gate, now blackened by the soot of ages. It stretches along the Mosel river and is thus a centre of wine production and tasting. The cathedral is a venerable Romanesque pile, conjuring visions of the earliest bits of the Middle Ages. And the town is packed with festive gables, colourful statues and all the other little decorative elements that scream picturesque Germany.

The picturesque was marvellously enhanced by Trier's Christmas market, 95 wooden booths gathered around the main square and the square in front of the cathedral. The booths were decorated with lights and greenery, with the roofs of many sporting angels, santas or alpine animals. Both squares contained lavishly decorated carosels, and the square by the cathedral sported a towering, oversized version of one of those wooden christmas toys in which the lit candles drive a propellor at the top of a pyramid of figurines. (See my Facebook page for a full range of photos.)

The booths were similar to the types I'd seen in Vienna a fortnight ago, though perhaps with a bit more variety. Decorated gingerbread in the shape of hearts, booths filled with glass Christmas ornaments, mulled wine and luxury chocolates were in common across both fairs. But the German market seemed to have a wider variety of custom crafted items.

Woodwork was abundant. I've never seen so many nutcrackers, in such variety, in my life. Ditto the little figures that smoke incense, and the pyramids that spin under the candles. Most of the nutcrackers were of the traditional sort, and we saw a few that were real pieces of art you'd consider keeping on display all year. There were lovely nativity scenes in hand carved wood, and a profusion of thin, stencil-cut wooden scenes made into wall plaques, screens and candle holders. A booth in each square held a life-sized nativity scene of the type once seen in most American town squares but now legislated into private spaces. (Ironic that America, caught in the grip of a rising tide of Christian fundamentalism, has practically eliminated public displays of religious Christmas scenes. Whereas in Europe, where nobody is particularly concerned about religion and there are active Muslim and Jewish minorities, nobody seems to mind creche scenes and Christmas trees.) I was tempted by many things, but remained quite restrained in my buying.

The memory of the scene, however, was the best thing I could possibly carry away with me. This is Christmas as imagined in the most perfect holiday fantasies. Only snow was lacking. Even the soundtrack was there. Brass quartets mixed Mozart and carols. Men in traditional costume turned the handle on glockenschpiel-type things that issued fantastical tunes. And at 6, the sonorous yet cheerful boom of every bell in every church in town rang out for fifteen minutes, a magical cacophony unknown either in the United States or the United Kingdom.

After an afternoon walking through this fairy tale, one thing was very obvious to me. Though Americans think of England as the source of our Christmas traditions, the real font of holiday magic springs from Germany. I suppose we all owe Queen Victoria and Prince Albert a real debt for importing all this stuff into the Anglo-Saxon tradition.

After more hellish travel, Luxembourg at last

My run of horrific luck when it comes to travel continued on Friday. Getting to Luxembourg should have been easy. It's a one hour flight, and I'd booked out of City Airport. Which, everyone told me, was an absolute joy because it's so small everything always goes on time. Ha!

First came the emotional trauma of barely getting to the airport. The London transport site says to allow half an hour between Waterloo and City Airport. No. Try close to an hour. Over an hour if you're a clueless newcomer to the line and accidentally get on the wrong DLR train. I arrived just 40 minutes before my scheduled flight, in a serious panic that I wasn't going to make it. I shouldn't have worried. Not only was the flight delayed (supposedly by 30 minutes, ultimately by two hours) but the belt system for moving luggage around had broken. So everyone in the airport had to check in with their airlines, then stand in a single queue to hand in their luggage at one window at the far side of the terminal, by the runways. There were at least 200 people in that line.

With just one trip left in the calendar year after this one, I wonder: Will I take a single flying journey this year that leaves and returns on time, without complications?

We boarded the plane about an hour after it had been scheduled to take off. Fifteen minutes later the captain announced that because of the heavy rain and the low pressure system, the prop plane on which we were sitting was too heavy to fly. Cue further delay as they opened the hold to unload enough luggage to get us off the ground. Meaning that for the whole flight to Luxembourg, everyone on the plane new it was a crap shoot whether or not they'd have luggage on the other side. For me, with a bag filled with Christmas presents and a trip only scheduled to last two days, this caused serious heartburn. (Which, at least, displaced the angst of taking off in a prop plane in heavy wind and rain. I'm sure we were safe, but it sure felt scary.)

At last on the ground in Luxembourg at 11:30, I jumped for joy when my bag emerged. It was a quick ride to the home of the friends I'm visiting. Then, despite the hour, we stayed up a further two hours for our initial catch up and gossip session. Which seemed like a mistake when an excited five-year-old leaned onto my bed at 8am to drag her Auntie Bear into the new day.

But that's another post...