Happy New Year

The thing I really like about the Christmas / New Year period is that for a short, blissful time you can actually forget what day of the week it is and it doesn’t matter. This may seem like an odd thing for someone who runs a website called The Chiswick Calendar. Maybe that’s why I find it so liberating. For one stretch of watery sunlight to merge into the next without fear of missing an appointment or deadline, watching films late at night, Terry’s chocolate orange in hand, seems like the height of decadence, especially as we had the central heating and hot water restored just before Christmas by a very experienced guy from My Plumber, who worked out that the problem was something far less complicated and subsequently less expensive that I’d been told and fixed it within two hours.

I have been working though. I’ve been in website purdah, which is a bit like the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Budget purdah, only with more chocolate and without the hard maths. It involves killing off lots of old website pages and creating new ones full of promise for the new year: The Chinese Magical Lantern Festival and the Camellia show at Chiswick House; Watermans arts centre’s spring programme of children’s theatre; the Lyric’s brilliantly reviewed production of Roald Dahl’s story Fantastic Mr Fox. For adults, a chance to book for screenings of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in Pinter’s No Man’s Land and Lucian Msamati in Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus or regular arthouse and Hollywood fare such as Paterson or La La Land at Waterman’s cinema (NB club card holders can buy cinema tickets for £5 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays). There are some great talks coming up. The Chiswick Decorative and Fine Arts Society have one on David Hockney on 12 January. Chiswick Pier Trust have one on the architecture of the riverside from Putney to Chiswick on 24 January. There are some good food opportunities too. Fans of Hedone’s brand of simple but exquisite food made from the best ingredients will be pleased to know that the former Head Chef of the Michelin-starred restaurant is holding a pop-up supper club this Sunday, 8 January at Charlotte’s Place in Ealing. Lee Skeet left Hedone to set up his own place in Cornwall, but pops back now and then for a series of one offs and this is his only planned date in London. Dates for your diary later in the year: the Bedford Park Festival is 9 – 25 June and the Book Festival 14 – 18 September. You will find the main events in the Chiswick social calendar all on one page in our at glance guide to the year here.