We live close to Hampton Court Palace in London and this weekend we attended the BBC Good Food’s Festive Feast held from 8 to 10 December 2017. We stocked up on treats in time for Christmas from artisan producers, and great gifts for food lovers were on sale. We enjoyed entertainment, sing-along carols and festive classics from local choirs, and were inspired by live cooking demonstrations in the Feast Kitchen. We also experienced the Tudor actors of the historic royal palace and attended Sunday matins and an organ concert by Richard Hills. The weather changed from a cold sunny Friday to a snowy Sunday.

“All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” CS Lewis

Photography: Ronel van Zyl

Hampton Court Palace is one of the royal palaces in London that borders the River Thames. Cardinal Wolsey, one of King Henry VIII’s favourites (but who was later charged with treason), started the building of the palace in 1515. After Wolsey’s fall from grace, the king took the palace for himself and later enlarged it. Hampton Court and the St. James Palace are the only two palaces by Henry VIII that still exist. King George II was the last monarch who inhabited the palace.

Visit Ronel’s blog at https://ronelvanzyl.blogspot.co.uk/