Winter Wetland

I entered a competition through the Londonist website to win a pair of tickets to a preview night of the Winter Wonderland event that's going on at Hyde Park Corner at the moment and "shock! horror!", I actually won.

Having completely forgotten that I'd entered the competition, the phone call from a nice sounding lady the day before the preview was to happen was a very pleasant surprise.

My memory being like a sieve nowadays meant that I'd also forgotten to tell the other half that I'd entered and after a bit of gentle persuasion along the lines of "come along tomorrow and watch me fall on my ass as I attempt ice skating for the first time", "it's free" and "it's only ten minutes away from work", we were all set for a nice evening.

Unfortunately the good old British weather wasn't going to let us get away with things that easily. The following day, Friday, felt like one of the wettest days of Winter, so far.

I spent some of my lunch break doing a quick reconnaissance of the area and taking a few shots of an empty park. The weather was cold and cloudy but by late afternoon it had started to take a turn decidedly for the worse.

I periodically looked out at Hyde Park, from my window at work, willing the dark rain clouds to go away and the wind to abate. And truth be told, it did a little bit. Come evening the wind was no longer howling like a wolf and it was no longer raining cats and dogs. Now it was just raining small hamsters and puffing like a bulldog.

Nevertheless, we thought, "it's free" and with our brollies protecting us from the majority of nature's cruel taunts we stepped out across the park and gave it a go.

To be fair, so did a few other people but not many. It was a lot emptier than it would normally be and this was a blessing in disguise.

Unfortunately I didn't get to ice skate for the first time. The rink was covered in an inch of water and only the brave, intrepid souls or the foolish dared to venture out. I was wearing jeans and knew that just a single fall (all but guaranteed for me) would have me soaked through in freezing cold water and turned to an icicle in no time.

We did try out other things though. Out first port of call was the giant wheel, a kind of mini London Eye with pods, that could seat a family, slowly rotating around to give you a good view of the surrounding area.

In our case the view was mostly obstructed by the rain though it was quite atmospheric and we got a pod to ourselves which allowed us to cuddle up as the rain lashed the pod and the wind howled around us. The other half loved it every time that a gust of wind blew the pod from side-to-side whilst I wondered what our chances of survival would be if the pod did actually fall (slim.)

I would however recommend the wheel (dependant on price) if you happen to pass by on a clear day or night.

Next we ventured into one of those capsule rides where a video gets played in front of you and the capsule rocks and rolls around in time with the video. In the case of the Winter Wonderland ride, it was a small excerpt from "The Snowman" accompanied by the requisite "Walking In The Air" song.

And boy was it naff! The rocking and rolling didn't really have much to do with the very grainy old video being played in front of us and the floor of the capsule was like one giant, muddy puddle as people got on and off with their wet shoes whilst nobody cleared up in-between.

Definitely not recommended for anyone, of any age!

Then we tried out the haunted house which as grown-ups you don't really expect to be very good, now do you? After all I remember going in these when I was little and not finding them particularly scary then. Is there such a thing as an actual scary haunted house ride anywhere?

Anyhow, it was more gory than scary though I did get a great laugh out of the bloke with scary mask who jumped out at the other half just after we entered and made her scream her head off. Hehe! In fact that was the highlight of that ride.

We then strolled around watching kids slide down the giant toboggan ride, which did look like good fun but, as with the skating, was off limits for us sensible adults in the still pouring rain.

And finally we checked out the German market which was okay though very touristy and very small compared to others that I've seen or heard about around the country.

So, though slightly dampened by the weather conditions, for free, we'd had an interesting evening out and finished it off with a lovely pie and mash in Selfridges food hall. Yum!