Christmas Eve in London

Dec 29, 2007 by Justin Wayne

jwa

Welcome to (possibly) the last installment of the show for this year! Good thing that next year starts on Tuesday, and I’m sure we’ll have more pictures to show you. Julie, Jamie’s mom is here visiting us and we’ve got some great pictures already. We’ll do a huge, picture-riffic episode next time, but this one will be including Jamie and my gifts to each other.

Do also notice TWO new episodes of the Classic Chronicles in the sidebar.

Also, some news about the show. As of January 8th I will no longer be associated with Off the Chart Radio. This is because I think that while doing internet radio on a volunteer basis is great and I love it, I most definitely don’t want to have to PAY SOMEONE ELSE to present on the radio. I’ve done radio for over five years and if this station wants to pick the pockets of it’s presenters/djs for money instead of spending a bit of time advertising (even just a tiny amount would do it) then I want nothing to do with it.

I haven’t told them yet, so shhh…

What does this mean for the Classic Chronicles? After a good brainstorming session with Jamie and listening to myself whine about not being able to do radio I’ve decided to begin producing a weekly podcast using this blog as it’s centerpoint. It’s going to be a bit different. Since I’ll be using iTunes to distribute it too, I’ll have to use music that I’ll have permission for. I’m going to be doing research and finding new and unsigned artists for the shows so if you or your friends have recordings you’d like played on it, let me know! It will be named after the blog… either the Justin Wayne Show or the Justin Wayne Radio Hour. I’d love your help on the name. Let me know what you think!

More about the audio/radio/blog thing next time. I’ll be shooting for mid-January (Soon!) to get it off the ground so keep your eyes out for it.

(That’s such a weird colloquialism isn’t it? “keep your eyes out…”)

Anyway, I also wanted to share with you how our Christmas went. A meager Christmas we still had a great time. We traveled down to St. Paul’s Cathedral (that’s the the big one) in the proper City of London. Here’s a few shots of us standing in front of it after we got in. It was a HUGE line.

It wrapped around the entire Cathedral grounds. We were worried we weren’t going to get in, but we did. It was the carol service too which had their world-renowned choir singing songs and we got to sing along as well. I’m not quite sure why we didn’t sing the traditional version of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” though. Maybe they sang the traditional British version. We’re in London, after all.

We then went for Indian cuisine (we were waiting for Jamie’s mom to get there the next day for Christmas dinner). Standing out in the cold, we were coaxed inside by a very nice waiter who not only welcomed us in, but directed the wonderful smells of the food out toward us. Feeling a bit like the “Christmas Story” family, we went in and had a wonderful dinner. No, they didn’t bring us a duck with the head still on it.

After that we opened presents. I received an excellent set of sweatpants (for some reason, I had no real “house pants” that made it across the pond) and a football (a soccer ball). She also bought me a older printing of the longer Sherlock Holmes stories and I’m excited to make it through Seabiscuit and begin working on those.

After that, Jamie opened hers to find a table easel, a set of oil paints and brushes, and three blank canvases. She was very excited, and I was excited that she liked it.

So… until next time when I’ll tell you about the crazy adventures we’ve had with Jamie’s mom thus far… Bus rides, train rides, crazy crowds… Until then.

Thanks for all the love and support over this Christmas season! We really do appreciate it!

Cheers!

Justin