BOXING CLEVER

I see that the Boxing Day sales in London were a big hit, literally - given the fight you needed to engage in to get to the sales counter.  You could (provided you queued from 6am and fought off several thousand other shoppers) pick up a Prada handbag for only £1,750!  Or some Dior perfume for only £99 a bottle!  I went to Kingston and bought an M&S merino wool sweater for £20. 

Indeed, so relaxed was I about the sales that we spent the morning walking around Richmond Park, somewhere I hadn't been for some years. Richmond Park is famous for:

its size (it is 2,360 acres of public parkland),

 

its vistas (this is the view from the coffee terrace at  Pembroke Lodge),

 

its deer (while I stood there, a whole herd passed by, but I quite liked this well-camouflaged young male),

 

and more recently its parakeets - large numbers now live in the trees, after a pair was released there some years ago (they are notoriously hard to photograph; can you see this one?).

 

We had lunch in the rather splendid Albert pub at Richmond.

 

 And then deigned to wander into Kingston to bargain shop.  Kingston is famous for its shops and its quirky street art.

Actually, I had planned to attend my first football match, since resolving (unsuccessfully) to attend an AFC Wimbledon game three years ago (Wimbledon play at the Kingstonian Ground), but the match was postponed (unsurprisingly I suppose) through a waterlogged pitch.  But I still picked up my bargain sweater.  And I didn't have to karate kick anyone to get it.