White Christmas!

For the first time in my life, I have experienced a white Christmas! There was only a light dusting of snow, but it make the place look so lovely! The temperature didn't get above 2.6 degrees Celsius on boxing day, so the snow lingered for another 24 hours. For 45 years I've been listening to carols about white Christmases, and finally I have enjoyed the real thing for myself. This is the first time in 23 years that it had snowed in the UK on Christmas Day, so it was pretty special.

On Christmas Eve, we went with Christina & Dave to midnight mass at the local Church of England - St Margaret of Olton. This is about 10 minutes walk down Kineton Green Road, which was really freezing by the time we left the Church at 1am... But it was a nice service that integrated popular carols with a serious service. The pews were full and everyone looked happy to be involved.

Christmas Day was spent at Rob & Dawn's, with Dawn putting on a sumptuous feast for the crowd. Once again, the flaming brandy on the pudding was an eyebrow singeing success. 

Dawn's mum had given the twins matching toy vacuum cleaners for Xmas, which made a dreadful droning noise (bless her!) - how we look forward to those batteries running down! We gave the twins a miniature table and chairs, which Ray assembled & Chris painted.

We had lots of fun with this (pictured) gift for Rob. He hinted that he needed a nasal hair trimmer (as he had lost his in a hotel room), so we got one and packaged it up with a new label "Olifactory Follicular Harvester", complete with (pseudo) 230 volt power lead.

Boxing Day, we spent at home, with an invitation to the family to come and join us. We were joined by George, Ray & Clair, Dave & Claire, Christina, Judy, June, Michael, Rob, Dawn, Tom, Caitlin and Grace. We managed to squeeze all 16 of us into our tiny flat, really enjoying the day. Ray & Clair spent a couple of nights with us, joining in a webchat with Aidan & Rach and a chilling walk to the local park.

The day after boxing day, we hit the shops, hoping to find some bargains (with the attraction of up-to 70% off). The plan was to get a whole new outfit (or three) for Chris, but this proved elusive. It was me who stumbled out of Debenhams at 8pm with armfuls of bags. 

So today (28th Dec) Chris has gone into town again (this time with Christina who is probably a better shopping companion than I am!)

We had planned on buying leather jackets for both of us, but we balk at spending that much money on something we might not ever wear in NZ as it's not cold enough. Based on the weather reports I have been hearing about NZ, you might beg to differ - hail & snow in December?!

The best Christmas present of all for us, is the news that Aidan & Rachael are going to have a baby, our first grandchild! Aidan's hoping for a boy, who can learn all his motorbike tricks! Either way, come August, there will be the patter of little feet in their house, to everyone's delight. Congratulations Rach! We know they will make great parents, we've watched them with their nieces and nephews, showing the signs of great parents in the making. 

Thanks for Lee Steitz, here's a reminder of how Aidan & Rach met on the MSN chat system:
Your son says: Daddy, how was I born?
Aidan says: Ah, my son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway!
Well, you see your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on MSN.
Then I set up a date via e-mail with your mom and we met at a cyber-cafe.
We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive.
As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a blessed little Pop-Up appeared and said:  You've Got Male!

Earlier in the month, I enjoyed THREE Christmas parties for Shoosmiths staff! 

The first was a formal black tie event in Northampton, for the finance and IT departments. Accommodation was provided at the venue - Broomhill Country House Hotel, Spratton, Northamptonshire. This is a small hotel, built in an old manor house, with only about 20 rooms. The Althorp estate was right next door (home of the Spencer family including Princess Diana). To my amazement I found the place in the dark, and yet the local bus driver, who was taking many of my Northampton workmates, got lost!

A marquee was in the grounds, resplendent with chandeliers and good central heating. Chris & I went out the evening before to buy a formal dinner suit & tux - as I didn't have that type of attire.  She was really envious, wanted to come to this party, but it seems to be the tradition in the UK that partners usually don't go to work social events - something we disagree with, as we like the opportunity to meet the people we've been hearing about for so long! As per my Hill Laboratories reputation, I was the paparazzi for the evening - taking almost 300 photos of the evening, putting the best ones into a PowerPoint presentation for staff to enjoy. I did feel a little self conscious that I was the oldest person there...

Now we need to find some more occasions where I can wear this formal gear - I've promised Chris to take to her a swanky restaurant or ball, where we can both be dressed to the nines, perhaps for our 11th wedding anniversary in Feb 2005.

The second Xmas party was a lunch for my team (the business systems specialists), at a New York style cafe 'Joes Diner' in Northampton. 

Last but not least was a party in Birmingham for the local office - this was held at the Glee Club, a stand-up comedy club which didn't cope very well with the huge Xmas crowd. The queue for the buffet meal took over 1/2 an hour! Then, on came the comedians, who were very funny - but it's a shame so much of their humour had to be so dirty. One of the comedians Will Smith was on this years Royal Variety TV Concert - the most disappointing TV concert I've seen. It seems to be the fashion that many get blind drunk at these events, the bar tab was about $50 per person! I piked out, leaving at 11pm in order to get the last train at 11:23 - others stayed until the wee hours. At least many of the heavy drinkers chose to stay in hotels 

I also attended a lunch with other solicitors' IS staff, which is the first business network which I have joined. It will be great once I get to know these people, as they will provide a source of advice and support outside of Shoosmiths. 

Chris didn't have much of a Christmas celebration with her NHS job, but did come home with seven presents from her workmates! They're a good lot of people - working very hard but genuinely caring about each other.

We're really envious of NZ having passed the smoke-free laws. Most of the pubs and restaurants here are full of people smoking (25% of the UK population smoke). One restaurant we went to was smoke free until 11pm, then they started. Ugh!

Some more good news is that one of my workmates Simon Hartley is emigrating to NZ in February next year, with his partner Jan Rodrigues. He's travelling in March 2005 on the under-30 working holiday scheme, she's coming to study teaching English as a second language - both with the hope of finding sponsoring employers. We wish them the best of luck. Simon is a Milton Keynes lad, a genuinely nice guy, who has recently won a UK national award for his programming work on knowledge management systems. May we give them your contact details - so they will have a friendly face to call on from time to time?!

We're going to have a planning weekend with Simon & Jan, together with Ray & Clair, so we can give them lots of advice of what to do and where to go in NZ. 

Simon has very kindly given us a DVD of Billy Connelly touring NZ, which is a good laugh and a great overview of NZ's geography and features by helicopter. Billy is trundling around in his 3 wheel motorbike, interviewing locals and experiencing NZ for himself (including his naked bungee jumping at Queenstown!)

On 11th December we baby sat the twins, so that Rob & Dawn could go out for their first night out in the last 2 years! Caitlin & Grace are now 22 months old, confidently walking and doing their best to talk. They are very quick to mimic things we say and do, a real delight.

It really doesn't seem like nearly two years since they were born, just a couple of days after we arrived. That time has flown so fast.

We now have new tenants in both our Hamilton properties, thanks to our property manager Bronwyn Hunter. The tenants at Frost seemed to be attracting the attention of the police for anti-social behavior, but were paying their rent on time, so we had to give them three months notice. Frost Place is now looking a bit tired, so we're doing some quick renovations to bring it up to scratch again. Olympia Place is working out well - there is now a family in there who will no doubt enjoy the pool (if & when summer finally arrives in NZ).