Friday 22 December 2006

Christmas Plans 2006

Heading for our second Christmas north of the equator and it still has a movie-like feel about it. Having grown up with Christmas during the summer time -- and all the wonderful things that means -- a northern hemisphere Christmas seems a bit like living in a movie. You know, you've seen many things in movies and if you ever experience it -- say you get the opportunity to stay in a high-class hotel after having only ever seen them depicted in movies -- then so many things that you know about but have never experienced suddenly become more real. The full-on winter clothes, everything spiced with cinnamon, snow, Santa actually needing a fur-lined suit; these all make a little more sense now.

So having said that, we decided last year that we felt we'd like a break from the cold (mostly Gaynor) and are heading to Spain for a week just after Christmas. Thanks to a generous benefactor we'll be shacking up in warmer climes, along with my brother who is flying over from the US. Gaynor notes that with his arrival here all my siblings (barring Alistair) will have visited Europe.

So in light of the trip Gaynor has decided to "go easy" on the Christmas feasts. She listed the menu the other day and I'm not sure exactly what she means by the term but I'm looking forward to it! We are also going light on the presents -- something I personally prefer anyway -- due to the move at the end of July next year. More on that later perhaps. (No, we don't know where we are going yet).

So we wish you a happy and joyous Christmas time and of course, all the best for the New Year.

Sunday 10 December 2006

Blogger Hiccup

Google have released an updated version of Blogger -- the site and software which power this blog. During the change over many articles were 're-published', so to speak, when we applied the new labelling system [1]. So if you subscribe to the blog via the Atom or FeedBlitz newsfeeds (see down the left-hand side of this page) then you will receive notification of all the 'new' articles. Feel free to ignore them or re-read them, as you wish. Just pay attention to the date at the top of each post so you know if you are getting something fresh or a history lesson!

[1] You'll see any applied labels at the bottom of each post. You can click on it to get all the articles so labelled.