Five Days to Boxing Day.

We filled the shortest day of 2024 with colour and bright lights. The day started and ended in Devizes, a town very close to Sronehenge where Solstices are always celebrated. But actual daybreak and sunset were experienced at Battersea Power Station in London.

The shortest day unexpectedly took on the colour of Orange. My raincoat is Orange and it became the theme colour of my day.

We even drove to London in an orange car but more of that at the end of the day.

Breakfast at Borough Market with all the fun and pleasure of meeting up with people we haven’t seen for a while.  And all the excitement of Christmas in an authentic everyday market.

Lunchtime was spent at Fortnum and Mason. A place famed for a particular shade of blue, but even they had used Orange as their accent colour for Christmas.

At Fortnum and Mason, we found  some fabulous orange hued paintings that reflected the slightly rainy but warm hued feeling of our day.

Fortnum’s and the Arts – Grand Masters

These paintings by Francis Hamel exactly reflected our late afternoon return to Battersea.

A sprinkling of rain and fairground rides.

As dusk arrived we hit the road west to home and one last orange encounter.

Here is the last orange tale of the day. We were parked up in a rural market town, Devizes, on the last Saturday night before Christmas. The local lads were merry.  We were sat in the car outside Marks and Spencer. Bright lights and christmas lights outside made us invisible. A group of lads streamed around the car.

” ‘ere will ya look at that car “

“Boys lets get a photo”

” Mate, mate if my cock was a car it would be this one”

Let’s just think about that.

Conclusion reached later.

Stubby and orange and runs on electric.

And so we get to 26 days to Boxing Day. V for the Victoria Line and Victoria Station.

Victoria Station and the Victoria Line were part of my commuting journey for many years and Battersea Power Station was a twice daily feature of my commute. Which is why I painted it before it was redeveloped.

P.s even the guest towel at our friends house was orange.