Dancing to Lou Reed at Below Zero Temperatures

As if getting copies of the latest version of my work to be published in South Korea had not delivered enough pleasant astonishment for one day, Surreal Girl announced I was to be given a ‘surprise’. Beyond being told it was a ‘treat’, being given a precise time (‘4:05pm’) and a maddeningly wide location (‘Piccadilly Circus’), no more information was forthcoming. This was typical of her modus operandi – enchantingly infuriating.

After struggling to buy two extra roasting tins in Little Lebanon as daylight faded, I was reduced to making secret signs with my magic fingers to conjure a black cab. The Powers of the city smiled on me and a carriage with the welcome orange light appeared within moments. After a seat sliding hurtle through the West End, the destination was reached with two minutes to spare.

The ‘surprise’ was vodka cocktails at the ice bar on Heddon Street. For the next 45 minutes I was bundled into a quilted cape and gloves so I could drink cinnamon infused Absolut in a minus five degree environment. Everything inside the bar – walls, benches, artwork, glasses – was made of ice. When I moved through the airlock into the cold, I felt as if I was entering Hannibal Chew’s workshop from Blade Runner. I half-expected the fur hat wearing bartender to say: “You Nexus, huh? I design your eyes.”

As a theme bar, it should have been awful, but it was glorious. I could not help but smiling with childlike glee at speakers and lights recessed behind walls of frozen water, the lusciously vibrant colours of the cocktails and the sight of Surreal Girl dressed like a Siberian Yupik. I loved dancing to Lou Reed at below zero temperatures. My feet may have been frozen, but my cynicism was meltwater.

Afterwards we weaved through the extravagant streets of Mayfair. Shop windows too beautiful and expensive to look in, twinkling lights clustered into the shapes of giant angels. Our toes thawed out as we moved under the invading empire shadow of the Grosvenor Square fortress. Crossing Park Lane’s flowing river of headlights, we hit Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland.

It was hard to tell if the Ferris wheel centrepiece was meant to be lit like a snowflake of star, but that did not really matter. As it rotated, its blue LED light was a beacon for wonder. With a box of freshly cooked cinnamon pancakes and cups of Glühwein to keep our hands warm, we watched the ice skaters. Around us children ran amok with just purchased fluorescent lightsabres, high on too many caramelised nuts and too much pre-big day excitement. There was no snow, no carols, but at that moment, the romance of Christmas danced among the fairy lights and smiles.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Trying to shake the sleep from my eyes this morning, I stood and looked out on the canal. There was something wrong with the picture. Still addled with the decay of half-life dreams, it took me a few moments to process what was different.

The canal was frozen.

Except for one small patch that stood up to the bullying of the -5°C temperature during the night, the water around my home was now supporting a thin crust of ice. Clearly baffled birds moved gingerly across the new environment. Hogging the one gash in the crystal skin were three swans, new visitors to my stretch of the Regent. While I and everything else shivered, they were the epitome of effortless elegance.

When I ventured outside, the cold air stripped away the last trace of sleep, but the surprises kept coming. At the point where the Westway traffic rumbles oblivious over the canal, more than 100 geese were gaggling. A honking chorus sounded as I pushed through them. Beaks were snapped open and shut like teen hoods trying to intimidate by playing with knives. Thankfully my ankles and knees escaped unpecked.

With the swans, geese, the partridge I ate at the Army and Navy Club and number of Lords I met last week, I feel as if every day at the moment is trying to offer up a gift category from The Twelve Days of Christmas. There have been no gold rings, maids or calling birds yet. However, given that Christmastide does not actually start to the 25th, there is plenty of time for the universe to deliver.