getting back to normal

Everything is edging back to normality now.

Tomorrow I'll be taking down the tree lights ahead of the twelfth night and we'll put the remnants of the decorations back into a big cardboard box for another year.

This year the tree isn't completely blocking the doorway from one room to another, like it does some years, but we've reached the stage where walking close to it generates a small cascade of needles filling to the floor.

It's also reached the time where the fridge needs restocking with some normal items. The fancy armagnac cream and special stilton needs to make way for more day-to-day produce. Worryingly, there are still about a dozen mince pies awaiting demolition, and I'm not sure we have anyone to entice with them.

There's also only two mis-placed presents left. One is fully wrapped but in completely the wrong location and also slightly difficult to post. The other one is some kind of foaming bath thingy and I've no idea who it was destined for. It hasn't been labelled and I'm wondering if it somehow got into the decorations box last year and has made a return appearance.

I'll also be firing up the work computer tomorrow and then on Thursday I start travelling around again.

New Year Resolutions

I'm something of a sceptic about New Year Resolutions. It seems strange to only pick a single day to start new goals.

But...I also heard today that people that set resolution goals are ten times more likely to achieve goals in general compared with people who don't.

Or maybe I imagined it?

So last year I managed to do a couple of things:

• Less 25 by 8 working (thats an extreme form of 24x7) 
• Increased cycling as a modest exercise 
• Setting up and getting functional my own small company 
• Some time for art
• Continued time for blogging and similar pursuits (although it did splutter towards the end of 2011)

I didn't manage to finish the second book of the Triangle trilogy, nor learn any new tunes on the guitar or banjo.

This year I'll start a small number of goals as we start the year, as part of my ongoing blog projects.

1. Detox post Christmas (starting today)
2. More water and less wine (should be easy but I'm not sure I could do less coffee or tea)
3. Cycle - er - 40 miles per week (may need to review that one and increase it)
4. More salad and less sugar (also starting today)
5. Create a sensible operating model for the company I've created
6. Phase from all 'consultancy' work to more 'arty' work
7. Link up with a few more friends that are sliding off the radar
8. Complete 'The Square' novel

The above list is somewhat arbitrary and top of head, but can act as an initial spur. The first four items are also quick to test.

As is my way, I can also think of a few more (read a book a week/ replace the bathroom/ organise the music room/ empty the middle strip of junk from the garage), but I'd rather have a short-ish list and hit a few good ones first.

And, as a helpful cross check, here's the most popular New Year Resolutions (no particular order):

• Drink less alcohol
• Eat Healthy Food
• Get a Better Education
• Get a Better Job
• Get Fit
• Lose Weight
• Manage Debt
• Manage Stress
• Quit Smoking
• Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle
• Save Money
• Take a Trip
• Volunteer to Help Others

Hmm, too many ideas...

Happy Twenty Twelve.

Happy 2012.

As we move to saying "Twenty" in front of the year, we managed to see some of the fireworks and chink some glasses for the new year. The singing below is probably best left unlistened.

Although you can press here for an earful.

When do we start leaving the "Twenty" off and just saying the last part?

a quick look back but fun going forward

Several of us had arranged a get-together over the Christmas break. It was one of those rare occasions when people are back together more or less in one place including from Australia and USA.

We'd found a pub venue conveniently co-located by a tube station and took the additional precaution of starting the session quite early.

Then to stories and exchanges of information about each others' exploits spanning considerable time periods. Who was in a band? Who was designing theme park rides? Who had somehow acquired holiday property in Malta? Who had a fancy car that had a special button to make it go extra fast? How many of us had spent time living in America? Who had lost a finger in a motorcycle accident? The list goes on...

We'd all known one another very well but had also accumulated the typical 'friendship drift' that occurs, so by no deliberate means we'd all slightly lost track of what each other had been doing.

It's still good though, when people you haven't seen for a while have the same mannerisms and approach along with shared memories and sense of humour.

We drifted from the pub to the nearest and incredibly busy Indian restaurant where we somehow managed to secure a large round table which was soon stacked high with poppadoms, karahis, jalfrezis, bhunas and hot hot garlic chilli curries.

Oh, and naturally some Cobras.

Later still we left the restaurant and headed for another pub.

"You should never go back to the same pub twice in one evening," as we all agreed.

great games and limited television

Yesterday I seem to remember having to slither around the floor hissing and spitting circular discs onto a target.

Fortunately we'd recorded the last episode of Great Expectations so we could watch that late at night after the rowdiness had subsided (somewhat).

Earlier in the day we'd gone out hunting for a wedding present and my car passengers invented another new game by shouting at the Sat-Nav whilst I was trying to tell the voice recognition the required destination. We did get some unexpected ones as a result - although I'm not sure that the process would catch on - or that I fancied driving to Helsinki.

During Great Expectations, I realised that we'd not really watched much telly at all over the entirety of the Christmas Season.

Mainly the Dickens three-parter (an atmospheric version with another adapted storyline that makes me want to re-read the story). Downton (not really my thing - and could one of the favourite characters really be consigned to 'the drop'?). Doctor Who (okay for a Christmas special - but the series needs a writerly re-vamp again). A Cee-Beebies program about Raymond the Squash (strangely compelling with small children and like minded adults around). And Ab-fab (which, unfortunately, wasn't - although the scene with that knitted jumper was good)

That's about all of the telly we watched, and most of that had been Sky Plussed.

But we did play rather a lot of silly games.

recording the moment

There's been a strange development recently as we've added a vinyl record player back into the rashbre central mix.

One of my totally unexpected Christmas presents, and a very intriguing one.

The rashbre central environment is wifi'd to the hilt and has various sets of speakers connected to the main music server as well as most devices from phones to iPads to PCs being able to select music.

Yet strangely the old-school record player with built in speakers and a manual tone arm and accompanying small stash of albums has been the hit over the holiday period.

There's a different ceremony to listening to music in 20-25 minute blocks with all the sound coming from the same part of the room. Of course, some of the old albums that never made it to CD or MP3 have been resurrected too. And even a couple of recent ones that were presented as vinyl instead of cd (like Evelyn Evelyn).

The idea to do this came about when we were in Hollywood earlier in the year. Strangely enough, the record player in use is an exact replica of the one from there too.
A great, if unexpected, holiday souvenir.

Oops, the side has just finished. I must select another one.

antique antics

This pub is usually a point on one of my bicycle routes where I'd stop for a few minutes, but on Wednesday we loitered there for a couple of pints (shandy in my case).

We'd already been to another sleepy village, where the consensus seemed to be to not open any of the shops again until Thursday at the very earliest. Luckily I didn't have the need for any emergency antique purchases so it wasn't very critical to the day's plans.

Then back to an evening of quizzes interspersed with some Charles Dickens.

And port.

Served in very tiny antique glasses.

And passed to the left.

no jams, honey

I can understand how people lose track of the right day during this week, but not why everyone wants to rush to the shops by Boxing Day and sit for hours in traffic.

Our successful visits managed to avoid most of the ten mile plus shoppers' traffic jams all around London.

I suspect they are caused by the big shopping centres progressively being sprinkled around the edges of London. There's two either side of the river in East London as well as another new one which opened in time for the Olympics. I noticed the big jam for many miles leading to the north side of the Dartford Crossing.

The west side of London has another large shopping centre which is almost adjacent to the now closed Hammersmith fly-over - one of the main routes in and out of the centre. This would account for the traffic jams I spotted all the way out to the M25 near to the M4. And the middle of London has the usual tourist shopping areas in any case.

By taking the counter-intuitive way around the motorway, we dodged all of the jams we headed for our visits yesterday.

No shopping involved.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Ever since the year we accidentally left the front door open on Boxing Day, we've been a bit more careful when we go out.

On Boxing Day, that is.

We'd a complement of extra visitors and lots of shiny new toys and gizmos when we all decided to go out to the pub or something.

The bustling group of us returned later to the sight of a police car and a couple of neighbours loitering in the garden.

"What's happened?" was the obvious question.

"We spotted your door open but no-one in and wondered if something had happened?" (our neighbours know us better than that nowadays). "Phew - the Champagne's still here" I could hear someone shouting.

The police looked as if they'd had enough of the scene and good naturedly prepared to leave. I don't think there was any paperwork, although a lot of thanks to everyone involved.

Nowadays, if neighbours see the door left open (or the car boot), they quietly close it for us and move along.

Christmas Greetings

A quick snap of the tree, now that its been trimmed.

Most of the decorations are ones acquired on various trips and visits, so the little German soldier is from a snowy Christmas spent in Rothenburg ob der Tauber and the little sign behind it says 'Grand Canyon' from a visit about ten years ago.

Behind that (but tastefully blurred in the photo) is a bauble painted in the Native American style from Puget Sound. We picked it up in the Gaslight district of Vancouver.

...But enough. There's mince pies to be eaten.

Festive Seasonal Greetings.

last minute preparations?

There were still quite a few shoppers out today, seemlingly buying 'filler-in' items rather than major Christmas purchases.

We'd had a late brunch at Mike's in Notting Hill, before heading to the nearby Electric Cinema to see an afternoon movie. The cinema was filled with the aroma of mulled wine which was being served in half pint beer mugs, complete with mince pies.



Of course the film was suitably Christmassy too, "It's a Wonderful Life" back on the Silver Screen.

Then outside into the still bustling Portobello Market before a crimson sunset in preparation for Santa's flightpath.

lights twinkle

Now that most of the lights have moved from bulbs to the little LEDs, there's less things to go wrong than previously.

The biggest area to have to negotiate is the 'prevailing colour along our road'.

I already knew the solar powered blue lights were no-no, but I wasn't sure which kind of white light this year.

It turns out its 'warm white' rather than 'white' and means the houses around all sort of link together with the same theme.

I will sneak the multi-coloured flashing set into an upstairs room later.

And try to liberate and incorporate the multi coloured light up snow man.