Happy New Year 2016

I hope everyone has had a Happy New Year.  I’ve had a wonderful time relaxing over the holiday and enjoying simple things with my family and a few good friends.  We celebrated the New Year with a short break in London.

Charlotte-In-Kitchen
Down In The Kitchen
We visited the author Charles Dickens’ Museum at number 48 Doughty Street, well worth a visit, over five floors it was like walking back in time.   Nicholas Nickleby was written there.  His study was where he followed a self imposed strict regime writing between breakfast and lunch with no distractions.  When he lived there in 1837 he wore his hair long in the Regency period style.

Books
Books From Charles Dickens’ Study
His wife had two Children at this house already having an older child and the then the family moved after a couple of years.  The nursery of the house has a prison grille demonstrating the influence that his childhood experiences had on his later life. Being forced to work at 14 when his father was sent to debtors prison.

Debtors-Prison

On a wall in the museum section was a quote:

Mr Micawber’s famous, and oft-quoted, recipe for happiness from David Copperfield:

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.”

Dickens loved the Christmas period and wrote novels to coincide and remind people to enjoy the seasonal celebrations.

Sadlers-wells
Outside Sadler’s Wells Theatre
A special treat was tickets to watch the newly knighted choreographer Sir Matthew Bourne’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ at Sadlers Wells theatre the music was quite sublime composed by Tchaikovsky, one of my favourite composers, It retold the gothic styled fairy tale by Charles Perrault, featuring fabulous costumes designed by Lez Brotherston and brought to life by fabulous dancers who retold the story so well my Dad commented it was the first time he hadn’t missed speech in a piece of dance theatre.  My favourite dance was Princess Aurora and Caradoc the son of the dark fairy Carabosse truly fabulous dancing.

The cast was :

Aurora – Ashley Shaw

Leo – Dominic North

Count Lilac – Christopher Marney

Carabosse – Adam Maskell

Caradoc – Adam Maskell

We hadn’t realised we required tickets to watch the New Year fireworks at The Thames and all the viewing points were sold out, but there was a great atmosphere down on The Strand and we had quite a crowd to count down to the New Year and we just saw the top most fireworks explosions so it all turned out well.

I hope you all have a fabulous New Year with good health and happiness.

82 thoughts on “Happy New Year 2016”

    1. Hello Cheryl, my family and I had a wonderful time, it was very special to celebrate in London together. I hope the new year brings you happiness and success.

      Best Wishes,
      Charlotte

      Reply

  2. I find it amazing that you’d need tickets to stand squashed up in a crowd to watch fireworks!
    I am so pleased you’ve had a relaxing holiday! The Charles Dickens museum sounds great – I must get to see it one day. The ballet sounds good too – was that the all-male company?
    Happy New Year Charlotte!

    Reply

    1. Hello Clare, I was very shocked too Clare, but we still got a good view even though it was obstructed by buildings. 🙂 the museum is well worth the trip.
      The ballet company was half female and half male.

      Best Wishes,
      Charlotte

      Reply

      1. Thank-you Charlotte! The reason I asked about the ballet company was that only recently Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake danced by an all-male company was danced here again.
        Best wishes, Clare

      3. It was a very daring project when it was first staged and many people really objected to it. Thankfully times have changed and it is fully appreciated now. The ballet certainly has a different dynamic with an all-male cast!

  5. Charlotte, Happy new year, sending you wishes for a productive 2016. Your holiday was interesting. Thank you for sharing

    Reply

  7. Sounds like fun! Methinks I need to ‘impose’ a writing regime in my life… But I believe I shall do it without the bars (yes, I realize that wasn’t the photo with the writing comment, but they were scary). Cheers, Happy Sweet 16!

    Reply

    1. Hello Annette, having targets is always a good idea, but I agree about perhaps losing the bars. A harsh reminder of making good choices and working hard though. I like the phrase ‘Sweet 16’ for 2016 I might borrow that 🙂

      Best wishes,
      Charlotte

      Reply

  13. Happy New Year to you and yours! Sounds like you had a terrific holiday.
    Hope that you have a wonderful year , Charlotte, the best, yet!

    Reply

  14. I was at Dickens House in 1977. I have a feeling it has changed a bit in 38 years. I don’t remember five floors. I bought his book “A Tale of Two Cities” in the gift shop. I still hope to read it someday.

    Reply

    1. How interesting perhaps they have opened more for tourists now, I did include the basement and attic servant bedroom and nursery. He did live in many different places, a very exciting life. Perhaps in this new year you will get chance to read it.

      Best Wishes,
      Charlotte

      Reply

  15. Happy New Year to you as well Charlotte, and I am glad you had a wonderful time with family, as well as friends. I enjoyed the article about Charles Dickens. May the Lord bless you richly is my prayer.

    Reply

  16. happy new year to you too, sounds like you had a lot of fun with ver the holidays. What a treat it must have been to see the Charles Dickens museum, thank you for sharing those pictures!

    Reply

    1. Thanks John, I’m sure as a writer yourself you would enjoy the museum, so much information that I wasn’t aware of, for example he had two Ravens as pets and grew very fond of them, he had one stuffed and it was in the nursery 😳.

      Best wishes
      Charlotte

      Reply

    1. Hi Eric, one of my favourites too, when ‘Once Upon A Dream’ started I was so tempted to sing along 😀. Hope you had a lovely Christmas holiday.

      Best wishes
      Charlotte

      Reply

  21. Happy New Year to you and your family. Yes, you need tickets for just about everything these days. There has been some controversy regarding the fireworks and our struggling farmers and fire affected families and the suggestions that the Fifteen Million Dollars spent on pyrotechnics could have been better spent helping farmers and those who lost everything.

    Reply

    1. When you put it like that John perhaps the people enjoying the fireworks should contribute, we’ve had terrible floods in Cumbria and York and I hope the people get the help they need to get back in their homes.

      Best wishes
      Charlotte

      Reply

  26. This is definitely a museum I’d love to visit, Charlotte. I love the works of Dickens, and the Victorian period fascinates me, so next time we’re down there, we’ll make a point of seeking it out. It sounds as though you had a wonderful break in London. I imagine seeing ‘Sleeping Beauty’ was the icing on your (Christmas) cake! I wish you every success with your both career and personal life in 2016.

    Reply

  27. It seems you had a wonderful and restful holiday Charlotte ~ and to top that off, seeing the home/museum of Charles Dickens must have been inspiring. Great photographs, so good to see your smile to start the New Year. Take care and as they say, break-a-leg in your work this coming year…

    Reply

  28. I am so envious of your trip to the Dickens house! You do have such good times with your family, Charlotte. May 2016 be filled with more of them!

    Reply

  33. Happy New Year Charlotte. Gosh, your mention of Sadlers Wells reminded me of all the books I used to read as a child, dreaming of one day growing up to be a ballerina, completely overlooking I had never had a lesson. I just Googled, and they were the Sadlers Wells series by Lorna Hill. Too funny to think a girl in faraway Australia getting hooked on those books 🙂

    Reply

      1. Did my best. I doubt my short, dumpy Italianesque body did it the same justice though 🙂 Seriously though – I had completely forgotten until your post. Thank you.

  34. I must get to the Dickens house, it looks fascinating. We had a family London treat too – Eugene Onegin (better than the earlier version of the same production) at the ROH and the Fabric of India exhibition at the V & A, which was stunning. One of the alternatives had been the Sleeping Beauty, but there just isn’t the to do everything.

    Reply

    1. I think you’d really enjoy it, if you take the time to read all the exhibits it’s very interesting. What a big treat, one of my favourite operas. We saw the treasures of India exhibition I love the V&A and try to go whenever I’m in London, the music room is just lovely and I played on,the interactive board with the jester great fun, wouldn’t it have been funny if we’d bumped into each other there.
      Best wishes for 2016
      Charlotte

      Reply

  36. I hope that you have a wonderful 2016 and that you achieve many goals, dear Charlotte… Very good luck to you and much success. Aquileana 😀

    Reply

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