Well, xmas has been and gone.

Lots of bits and pieces of news since last update though nothing earth shattering.

I was unexpectedly made redundant a few months ago, and spent a few rather nice months being a bum. Witness the trips to the New York/US/Canada, France and Tuscany! I have now taken a flexible term contract with a company called Innocent that makes fruit drinks. The work is quite good, reasonably interesting and pays well enough to keep me nicely afloat and enable me to save some away in case I find myself on the street again. Between this job and my most bountiful tax rebate, I expect that even if I found myself out of work again next week I would still have enough money to see me through to end of June or so, which is a reassuring feeling and has enabled me to start being a little more adventurous again and go out and do things without stressing too much about the cost, so that’s good. Of course, I’ve now been working long enough that I’m over the “honey-moon” period, so it’s stopped being a thrill to go to work and is back to involving some willpower on my part!

I’m signed up for another French course starting in Jan, my French continues to go well so I’m determined to try and keep it going as long as my motivation endures! I’m actually dead keen to start learning Mandarin as well, not only is it part of my heritage (well, sort of, actually my background is teochew and Cantonese, but sadly they’re much more limited in their usefulness), but I really want to visit China, and I expect I’d enjoy it immensely more if I spoke some Chinese.

The unfortunate aspect about doing short-term free-lance contracting is that it is quite difficult to plan longer term things like Chinese courses and gym membership, since I don’t know where I’ll be working in a few months time.

I’ve seen heaps of movies recently, including Harry Potter - excellent, Lord of the Rings: Two Towers - Most excellent and James Bond - rather disappointing.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of going to art galleries with various friends, including exhibitions of Renaissance Underdrawings, Thomas Gainsborough, Lucien Freud, Derain to Kadinsky . In the process I’ve discovered the restaurant at the top of the National Portrait Gallery which is a fantastic London find, very classy, fantastic views of Nelsons column, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and the London Eye, and great tea and scones for a very reasonable price (£5 - £10).

Christmas was spent in London, partly as a matter of principle because I figured that if I was to truly consider myself a “Londoner” it didn’t do to keep running away from it at every opportunity! At a more prosaic level, it was also cheaper!!! Anyhow, I’ve had a lovely Xmas period here in London, particularly the weekend of 21 and 22 Dec, and I’ve not regretted once my decision to stay in town rather than go away.

On Sat 21 I got up and wrote the 15 or so Xmas cards for UK/Europe in time for the last guaranteed post. In typical fashion I’d got my NZ/Aus cards done in time for the 10 Dec deadline and then completely failed to do anything on the local cards in the 10 day interim! Hopefully you got yours on time? Anyhow, Sat afternoon I wrapped Xmas presents, and in the evening Mark, Steve and I went out and bought a Christmas tree and decorations. Then we all went out and met with Faye and various others to see Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. After the movie, we came home and put up the Xmas tree and decs. Faye was a bit disappointed that it was so late, but I like my Xmas period short and sweet so I was quite pleased. We’ve got a nice big tree with baubles and blinky lights, and the head of Steve’s trident mounted on the top as the angel…..!?

On Sunday 22 we got up most leisurely and civilised and breakfasted and exchanged flat presents as agreed in advance. From Mark I got one of those really annoying little “get the rope off the ring” type puzzles, which marks the recommencement of hostilities since some years ago we had a tradition of exchanging such things at every xmas and birthday etc! From Steve I got a book on how to dress like a gentlemen, not sure what he’s hinting at! And from Faye I got the sheet music for Phantom of the Opera, which I’m particularly chuffed about and has re-motivated me to practise my piano a bit more. We then went to an Xmas roast dinner at our local pub, which Faye had arranged and we had about 10 other people there, including Aidan, Kate, Paul and Emily. It was a really nice lunch, and most people came back to ours after for tea and cards which was just really, really nice.

All in all then, a lovely time. I spent Xmas day itself with my uncle and aunt down in Dover, very quiet but nice, and I came away with a satellite radio for Xmas that I’m most pleased with as I’ve been wanting one for a while so I can wake up and listen to French radio first thing in the morning! On boxing day Kate and Paul came over and cooked us another roast dinner, and we had a lovely time drinking champagne and white wine and playing cards… again… yep the card playing tradition has been revitalised here in the uk, last night, of all people, Steve wanted to play so I taught him and Faye Vest, on which Faye was most keen so we had to play two games!