No doubt one of our strongest memories of living in London 10-odd years ago is one of a very wet and miserable Autumn. It's easy to remember the icy downpours, the loooong hours of darkness, and lots of evenings curled up under a duvet in a chilly flat.

But that was the London of old! New London apparently has done away with this nonsense! Or at least it decided to give us a special one-off deal for our temporary stay here, as we were SO blessed to have so many gorgeous Fall days. When we learned that all 4 of our guests would be visiting us in November and December, we envisioned long rainy days of museum visits, but luckily for everyone, they caught this special little window of weather. We discovered that Christmas starts extra early in London, and bestows upon the city magical street lightings and windows, cozy carol sing-alongs, and if you do your research right, free mulled wine and gingerbread cookies alongside said events. We figured that since we "missed" Christmas while we were in southeast Asia last year, it was impossible to overdo it, and marked our calendar with as many free holiday events as we could fit in. We made it to our first and only pub quiz of this visit (how?!) with Thomas and learned that 3 Canadians are always going to struggle against 6 Brits, but that we are still savvy enough to know that "The Mousetrap" is the longest running West End show in history (duh.) We went on a "Plague Tour" where we toured new neighbourhoods in The City and learned about where all the morbid details took place (will never look at this area in the same way again.) And Troy bit the bullet and forked out a wad of cash to finally make it to a Premier League game! He and Thomas were hoping to experience the crowd reaction of a goal at Emirates Stadium, and luckily Arsenal delivered. Proper football match - check!