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Part 1 of a round-up:

• On Christmas Eve, met up with some old friends from school and church (David and Ric) for drinks. Caught up on the events of the last few years of their lives. Ric convinced us to go to church on Christmas Day at least for social reasons. I showed up at the end of the service and found quite a few people that I remembered, and that remembered me.
• Received the following presents: the Massive Attack DVD; various CDs; The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson; chocolates; socks labelled with Homer Simpson saying d'oh; money.
• Met various of my relatives for Christmas dinner and so on, for the first time in a year, including my cousin-once-removed, Zoe, who is nearly 3 and much more mobile and talkative than the last time, and my grandmother who sadly seems to be slipping back to Zoe's level in many ways. Had a good meal, though I missed the chance to eat chicken without guilt as I didn't know that it was free-range.
• Phoned other school-friends who hadn't responded to my earlier emails or voice-mails. Paul and Jamie were busy; Greg had got married and moved to his wife's native Florida, but I got a new phone number for him so was able to talk for a while. I might meet him and his wife when they come back here to deal with immigration paperwork.
• Headed north with mum to see my other aunt, uncle, and grandmother. Talked about the impending arrival of Nattie (I suppose it's the done thing these days, said my grandmother of our cohabitation), how to buy Skodas (aunt and uncle have a Favorit estate, mum may get a Fabia), and various other things. Mum brought a new nightie for her mum and cut it down to size. I took photos, which are currently being processed.
• Went home via an a.f.p meet at the Angel, Islington. Had a few drinks (mostly Coke though), talked to a few people, wore Ruthi's tiara briefly, then continued on my way. Train was slow, but I arrived home around 10 and found no burglary had taken place, which was good.

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Round-up, part 2:

• Spent most of the weekend at home, pottering. Went into work briefly to fiddle with the mail clients on my PC, and in particular to stop Outlook attempting to log-in to the IMAP server every 5 minutes with the wrong password (why wouldn't it give up?!). Washed the windows. They were dirtier on the inside than the outside, to my surprise, but then there's rain on the outside to clean them a little...
• Snow fell on the 30th. Not much, but it stuck. It's far too cold outside for my liking.
• Went shopping on New Year's Eve. Was intending to cycle, but the high humidity has rusted the bike chain a bit and the lubricant spray-can doesn't seem to want to spray. Then in attempting to turn the bike over I slipped and fell into it. Gave up and took the bus. Put film in for developing; saw cheap waste-baskets in Woolworths, and got 3 of them, some hangers, some coasters, and The Exorcist on DVD since they were all cheap as well. Was hoping to order various things from Robert Sayle's and Durham Pine, but they were both closed early (or maybe all day in the former case). Forgot to buy blank videos until after 5, at which point the only place I could find 4-hour tapes was Borders.
• Spent the evening in. Had some really good curry and beer though, and watched Pleasantville and Jools' Annual Hootenannay (a live music program).
• The snow hasn't shifted as it's still around freezing point outside. I stayed in the warm today, except to check that no, I hadn't put Nattie's phone away in the shed, and therefore it was missing. Phoned Cellnet to check up on the account, and found that all the credit had been used up. So it must have been taken in the burglary too. However, the insurance company finally paid out for that a few days ago, so it might be a bit late to claim for it. <sigh>