Kingston’s phone boxes

After lunch, we went for a walk to do some Christmas shopping in Kingston. It was busy, which must be good for the shops, but not manic (so, good for me). The walk was nice, but our route delivered us into Kingston via a path I’d not taken before, and we emerged in the middle of what seemed to be quite a new development. We must explore some more.

We visited Boots, L’Occitane, a hair salon, and M&S. I picked out a Christmas present for myself in Uniqlo and was surprised to find HMV both open and busy. I managed to get a gift voucher there for my nephew. There were many Christmas lights; I was taken by the large letters spelling out Kingston, using the phone box as the "i". Later, as we walked home, we’d head home past David Mach’s ‘Out of Order’ tumbling phone box art installation (featuring 12 decommissioned telephone boxes). I was surprised to discover the originals were installed in 1989. It made me wonder how much longer the phone box will be relevant. Will some future generation wonder what they were for?

The Christmas market is in place in the square. There was entertainment and plenty of food stalls. We bought a couple of mulled wines. They sit between the excellent (and relatively cheap) mulled drinks we had at Waddesdon and the terrible ones at Battersea. We didn’t opt for the food stalls; PY nipped along to Pret and bought some sandwiches we could eat in the market. We had to stay as each cup of mulled wine came with a £1.50 deposit on the plastic tumbler and needed to be returned. I thought it might be a bit of a pain, but it was very efficient.

Home for 6 p.m. and some final packing ahead of tomorrow’s trip.

See: Phone box