I thought things might have calmed down post Christmas, but here I am in a smart shirt and trousers, with more smartness hung up behind me, ready to go out and pick up Trevor and Jon. Helen’s getting married.

So where did we leave off last time? Dad had just left. He’s back up north now, but that doesn’t mean we’ve reclaimed the house. Paul’s cousin and his girlfriend arrived last night and took over the spare room. They’re here until tomorrow, I think, when they’ll be dashing back up to Coventry for working on New Year’s Eve.

Getting married the day before New Year’s Eve strikes me as a bit of genius, actually. Pretty much everyone’s still off work, and nobody stays in hotels at this time of year, so it’s easy – in theory – for everyone to find somewhere to stay. The only risk, of course, was the weather, which could have been truly grim. As it happens, though, the skies are as blue as could be for as far as you can see, and the only clouds are tiny whisps way, way, way up high.

It’s not even that cold. The little icon on my Gnome task bar puts it at 11degrees in Stanstead, with the prospect of warmer times ahead. Another two days of this, and it’ll be a perfect start to the new year, and excellent weather for the Mud Race on the 2nd.

Time to sign off. I have to go out and make my collection.

December is a bad month for journalising. I’ve done a tour of my links and several of them haven’t updated since before Christmas, so I’m feeling a little better about the fact that this is only my tenth entry this month.

It has been a fun month, though. Next month will be full of January blues – not only because it’ll be cold and dark, but because all the parties will have come to an end and there will be nothing to do after work except… come home.

So, Monday. Bank holiday. It was dad’s last day – or half day as he went to Sal’s this afternoon – so we went for a walk to get rid of some of the excesses of the last two days. We had planned on turning around at the end of the road, but somehow overwalked by two miles and found ourselves in the middle of town, so stopped for coffee in the new Nero, which I assume was once a bank.

We got there just in time. About twenty other people got dragged in on our coat tails, and stood around looking lost until we finally left our table and braved the sub-arctic conditions on the high street (where, in spite of the temperature, girls still paraded in tightless legs and plunging tops).

Bumped into Trevor in Waterstones and had an abortive trip through every clothes shop in search of a new coat, but beyond that it was a fairly fruitless trip. Still, the walk there and back did us all good, and it certainly woke me up. After two days of games and food (shame I don’t eat meat as that could be games and game) I’ve been feeling distinctly lethargic.

Yesterday went very well. The risotto was comprehensively demolished at lunchtime, as was the parmesan bread I’d made, and we all sat around playing happy families (actually playing the game – not just pretending to get on with one another when we didn’t), and then Rummikub. Which I won. Oh, and Cheat, which I didn’t.

Now dad has gone, though, and the house is back to normal, and we can all get on with things that have been put off for too many days. I’ve installed Fedora on one of my old machines. I should have done SuSE since Mark does the PR for Novell, but version 9.2 won’t be available for download until January, which is distinctly unfun, so against my better judgement I’ve veered towards the RedHat camp once more.

Let’s hope it’s more successful this time around.

Somehow it’s boxing day. I’m not quite sure why or how we got here so soon, but there you go.

The sun is doing its best to blind me thorough the window, but outside it’s still so cold that the little puddles left in the unfinished road in front of the house have frozen over, and created tiny pools of pure lethal potential.

So, rewinding… Somehow I’d signed everyone off for Thursday – except me – so if it was a choice of being alone in the office, or taking off an extra day myself. It wasn’t a hard choice; I didn’t have much on, anyway.

Thursday, then, was spent in the kitchen, baking yummy cheese and onion bread, and far too many Christmas cookies to eat this side of Easter. Cranberries, raisins, nuts and spice: 57 in total. I didn’t want to be left with random ingredients, so upped the bits I knew and guessed on the rest, and they seem to have turned out very well. Kedgerie for dinner, which was an exceptionall easy, if smelly make. It’s going to have a week to get the smoky fish smell out of the kitchen.

Dad arrived mid-afternoon, and I picked him up from the station: late. He’d only been waiting there a couple of minutes, but it’s turned cold, and they had been talking about snow on the way. In fact, they’d been promising a white Christmas but, as usual, it didn’t happen. Not around here, anyway.

Friday, we braved the town. Unwise, I would have though, but actually it was OK. I suppose everyone had finished their shopping. We had made vague plane for going out in the evening, too, but somehow ended up flopping around on the settee all night, watching the Bourne Identity again at some obscene volume and then falling into bed full, fuzzy and far too late. That put paid to arriving at mum’s on time yesterday morning.

I was supposed to be there at 10h15, but we didn’t leave home until a minute before that. It was very cold out, but nothing like today, and certainly not icy, so in spite of the fact the bridge across the railway line is closed it didn’t take too long to do the round trip, and I was there about 45 minutes late. I had called ahead, but they never found the message until a minute before I walked through the door.

Christmas day always follows a set routine. Cheese on toast in the conservatory, then crosswords and games and cooking for most of the morning. Sal and Dan arrive some time around lunchtime (3ish this year) and then we eat far too much and sit it off in front of the telly.

No sign of any trend bucking this time around, then. And in keeping with tradition I also won every game of Rummikub.

We barely watched any telly, fortunately, but what we did see was fairly dire. The Vicar of Dibley was the high point, after which it plummeted quite alarmingly. Absolutely Fabulous was funny about one time – at the most – after which it was plain embarassing. So much so that we switched off the sound and played games while it flickered away in the background. It would have gone off entirely if we hadn’t been waiting for Angus Deaton and the next disappointment.

Telly aside, though, a fab day. Much too much to eat, much too much sitting down, but a top way to spend a day off.

I left at midnight and drove slowly through the frozen lanes back to Ingatestone to pick up dad. We may not have got the promised snow, but we did get a thick, hard frost that took a lot of scraping and left the world looking sparkly and white. Perfect Christmas weather.

So today it starts all over again. Sal and Dan should be around any time now. In fact, they should have been here half an hour ago. I’m kitchen-bound for the first hour or so doing lunch, but after that there’s nothing but games, films and nibbles planned for the rest of the day.

By tomorrow I will be the size of the Hindenberg.

And so the party season draws to a close. Monday night, dinner with the ladies. Today, an afternoon off for the team lunch.

So, Monday night. We started off at Alphabet Bar, as we always do, but after a quick skirt around the periphery it was clear we weren’t going to get to sit down any time soon. We ended up at Revolution to do the whole cards and lucky-dip present thing.

We’d been useless on the planning front, so hadn’t even thought about where we wanted to eat, except for the fact that with a mixture of no Chinese, no Thai and no pizza between us we’d pretty much ruled out every restaurant in Soho. That left Tomato on Frith Street for yummy pasta and, for those who eat it, very rare beef.

We built model planes while we waited for the food, and dripped olive oil onto our clothes from the olives and bread, but while the portions were perhaps a little on the poky side it certainly deserves the five-star review I found far too late to make a difference.

Today, though, was the last party of the season. We downed tools just before lunch and walked down to Soho Spice, which has dropped its lurid silks and switched to a far more sober brown throughout. Service was very VERY slow, but the food was excellent, and I guess you could let them off a tardy turn-around when there’s that many people.

Things moved a lot quicker when we moved on to Revolution (there’s a theme developing here) and the vodka Russian roulette began. They do vodka sticks – short planks with holes drilled in them to take shot glasses, with each shot a different flavour. I was lucky. My first was Turkish delight, then rhubarb and custard, and an apple one. Julian got the chilli one, with predictable results.

Julian samples the chilli vodka

After that he didn’t notice as Kenny and Keith gradually slipped more and more sugar into his beer, or Chris and I nabbed his mobile and started texting ‘I’ve just had some great cock’ to various numbers in his address book.

Paul T

I don’t know when everyone drifted off, but by about eight, after PC Pro had joined us, there was just me, Tim, Paul T, Jemma and Clive. Revolution was filling up. Fox Kids (who were clearly neither kids nor foxes) had commandeered out table, so we went to Alphabet Bar. Tim walked into a lamp-post outside Mildreds at just about the only time the camera was back in my pocket. I asked him if he’d re-stage it for a picture, but for some reason he wasn’t so keen. He also swore me to absolute secrecy, so apart from telling everyone in the pub I’ll make sure nobody else finds out about it.

Tim guarded the chips

Christmas is over. I’ve finished the shopping, everything is wrapped and now all that needs doing is the dishing out and opening up.

And the eating, of course.

Most of the parties are finished. Some of them earlier than planned, including Thursday when Ross, Will and I ended up at the pub as soon as dinner was finished and I ended up feeling a bit guilty that we hadn’t stayed longer. I’m sure it was a very expensive do, but I think by party 24 we were a bit Christmased out.

Somehow we managed to attract some cling-on girls who followed us there, apparently by coincidence, after failing to get into a club, probably on account of already being completely blooted by 21h.

Ross with devil-red eyes, Nik with worrying lack of hair, and Will with a manic smile

All in all, that averaged out to a very nice night, but I do think I’m getting far too familiar with the last train home.

Not so on Friday. It was Mark’s birthday, so we went to The Edge on Soho Square. He’d hired out the top floor and after a few anxious minutes when it looked like we might be the only four around it quickly started to fill up. So much so, in fact, that by nine it was standing room only. Just as well he’d and Ems had taken the opportunity to pose for the official birthday photo earlier on, then…

I bailed out at ten, along with Sophie, Kathryn and Ems, and gave in to the charm of an early night. Ended up sleeping right through, unbroken, until yesterday afternoon. That pushed the end of the shopping to this morning, and bumped the rebuilding of my oven, after last week’s dismantling and scrubbing, to this afternoon.

I stupidly set out to do it without taking along my keys. How I thought I’d get in there I don’t know. Fortunately mum has spares, so I carted her around and she let me in. She’s the only person to have seen it since I’ve finished all the painting and cleaning. Now she’s got me wondering whether I should actually be selling, rather than renting it out.

If I let it, it’ll probably get all scuffed up, and then I’ll have to paint it all again if I decide I do want to sell it after all. As it stands, it’s at its best, so good for showing people around. It would also give me the money to buy somewhere else, which could then be rented for more.

Hmmm…

So anyway, this week. It’s dinner with the dinnerladies tomorrow, party with the mag on Tuesday, and then the last slow roll-up to the day itself.

December is a great time to work in magazines.

Is there any chance at all of my staying awake through tonight’s party? I’ve barely been home this week and it’s starting to show. I’m sitting here all baggy eyed drinking mugfulls of coffee in the hope of staving it off for a few hours more.

I slept on the train this morning, which is something I never do.

So, Monday night… umm. I think I ended up staying late at the office, although it seems such a long time ago, and then Tuesday was the Dennis party. Big marquee over towards Grays Inn Road, lots of loud music. Lots of chat and a bit of a strange lull in the middle. It was nice to be able to sit around and chat, though, or mill around at the back, even if there were some pseudo paparazzi hanging around taking pictures all night.

I was going to skip last night’s do at the Alphabet Bar, but Mark was organising so I did some abortive Christmas shopping (didn’t actually buy anything) went to make up numbers. I needn’t have bothered, though – the place was absolutely packed. Ended up having a fantastic time and didn’t end up getting home until one this morning, in spite of the fact I was resolutely ‘just having one’.

Ho-hum.

I think it pretty much was the party that confirmed the winning formula where for Christmas do-s. Nice bar. Nice people. Nothing much organised, just an open tab and loads of good chat. I’d rate it right up there with last week’s do for Canon.

So that leaves two more things for this week on the two nights of the week that remain. Next week, as things calm down in the last week before Christmas, it should all get distinctly calmer, and to be honest I think I could do with the break.

Mark T emailed this week to see if I was free to be an extra this weekend in the film he’s working on. ‘Mourners ahoy,’ was the casting call, but apart from the fact standing by a graveside sniffling in a suit (probably in the rain) strikes me as a bit morbid for this time of year, I really think I ought to spend the time hitting the shops.

It’s almost all done, but with only one weekend to go – and probably no free nights – there isn’t much time left.

It’s December which means that as usual Gordon is off doing extreme things as a way of avoiding the Christmas shopping:

Just nipped into a cybercafe in Varanasi, so thought I’d drop you a quick note! Having a wonderful time – India is quite amazing, although full-on! The traffic is constant noisy chaos, and the incessant horn honking can drive you a bit mad, but it’s worth the effort! We had a good flight to Delhi, then headed out on an overnight train to Varanasi, which was actually okay, even though first and second class were fully booked, forcing us to travel third class! We got a bunk bed and AC though. No beer though, and the bunks were three high!

Varanasi is absolutely amazing, although quite possibly the filthiest place I’ve ever been in my life! The streets are paved with cowpats and as you know the river ganges is both a sewer and final resting place for countless dead bodies! So just like the thames I guess… That said, many of the locals bathe in it, drink it and even brush their teeth with it! Yuk! The foreign travellers are really funny too – as I’m sure you can imagine, a large percentage have really bought into the whole spiritual thing and are fully dressed in the orange garb – my Karma must be very low in comparison!

I was doing okay on the delhi belly front and have had some really tasty food until earlier today when it really kicked in. We’ve got another overnight train back to delhi tonight, so I hope it’s not gonna be too bad, as the train toilets ain’t pretty! We then change at delhi and head off to Agra to see the Taj Mahal over night, then back to Delhi the next day for our flight onto to Tokyo via Singapore. Busy busy!

I, on the other hand, have had a weekend of domesticity. Saturday started at Sainsburys (I know there’s an apostrophe in there, but it looks wrong, so it’s gone) for rice and custard and veg. A fairly awful combination when you write it like that, but there you go.

Trevor, Jon, Graham and Roger were slated for dinner and there was nothing better matching in the house.

So, I dragged them all home and started to cook. Actually, to be more accurate, I started to bake. The bread first, so it had time to rise before a trip to the oven, while I got on with doing desert. I thought there would have been plenty of time. I started at two, after all, but at six I was still at it, and ten minutes after we were set to sit down in was finally done.

All in all, it went quite well. Mushroom risotto, my new favourite dish, made very very slowly, with a Mediterranean pepper salad. The salad could really have done with being warm, I think, but it wasn’t so bad.

After that we sat up talking until well into Sunday, and so the next day proper started not much before lunch. A nice long sleep bookended by meals. That can’t be bad.

That left half a day for sorting out the flat. Finally. The walls are painted, the carpet has been cleaned. The bathroom and kitchen have been scrubbed.

Unfortunately ‘scrubbed’ is more accurate than I would have liked. I’d bought some kitcheny stuff that you pour into a bag and then zip up the top with your grill pan inside. ‘Don’t scrub,’ it said on the side of the box. ‘Just wash off the burnt on dirt in warm soapy water.’

LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE

SCRUB SCRUB SCRUB SCRUB

LIE!!!

The long and the short of it, though, is that I’m now all done. I switched off the lights and locked the door for the last time at precisely 18h00, Sunday 12 December 2004, almost seven years to the day since I moved in. It’s ready for renting; I have finally moved out.

That’s not to say I’ve properly moved into the new house yet, though. The flat keys may be off my keyring, but my mail still hasn’t been redirected, and there are still piles of my stuff here in the house waiting to be sorted. It’s been a long trawl, then, but slowly it’s (I’m) getting there.

And another week gone so soon.

I switched to gyming in the evening after the bus-vomit-trousers incident. I didn’t want to risk being that full of energy that early in the morning again this week. I wish things weren’t so hectic at the moment. Then I could stay for longer than an hour at a time, but at least I’m back there again, after several weeks of absence.

So, what’s happened in the interim. Hmmm… well, there was the Canon Christmas Party at Bar Blanca – the same place as last year. Lots of bizarre unidentified drinks, including one that looked like the cold top of a latte, but tasted of cinnamon and apple. Another one spontaneously poured itself all over my lap. Honestly. It was just sitting there one minute, and was all over me the next.

They have very uneven tables there.

I don’t know what was in it, but when I woke up and looked at the jeans on Thursday next monrning, it looked like I’d run a cross country with a pack of marines.

Trawling the links tonight, I see that Chris of the Brennan has yet to update the world on his trip to Washington. I shall therefore take custody of his story about the man on the metro:

Man: ‘So where do you come from?’
Chris: ‘England.’
Man: ‘Aah, right. Well you can answer me a question I’ve always wondered. Are Italy and Germany actually the same country?’
Chris: ‘No.’
Man: ‘Oh. How did you get here?’
Chris: ‘We flew.’
Man: ‘Oh, right. Was that on an American airline, or do you have European airlines, too?’

That’s Washington, America, not Washington, Tyne and Wear, of course. And these are the people who elected the most powerful man in the world.

I can see how it happened now.

Ho-hum.

Pub this evening with David, who had popped in to pick up the Cube he’d bought. That makes it twice in the space of four weeks we’ve seen each other, which in the nine years we’ve known each other is unheard of. The average interval is usually at least a year between each meet.

I gymed this morning for the first time in a shameful number of weeks. I blame the house move, but was still surprised at how hard going I found it.

Nonetheless, I got that post gym buzz that makes you do stupid things. The first stupid thing was to get on a horribly crowded train and sit on the floor for two stops. I gave up when we got to Shenfield and switched to the one behind it.

That was stupid, as it ended up getting stuck at Chadwell Heath. Someone had flung themselves under a train somewhere up the line and everything had been halted while the ambulancers walked up and down the line trying to remember the words to that ‘leg bone’s connected to the whatever’ song as they hunted for the bits.

So, risking marauding gangs of East Londonders I got off and walked through the broken streets of Redbridge in search of a bus. I’m reckoning I’ve not been there since I was 21. Ten years ago. Now there’s a scary thought. Anyhow, I found one by means of trial and error, and took a seat on the top deck.

I was determined to get to work on time.

Of course, with no trains running things quickly filled up, and about three stops down the line I shifted over one space so the woman who had sidled up beside me could sit down.

Stupid stupid STUPID!

It took about five minutes for me to notice a rather tangy smell, and five seconds more to disregard it.

And five minutes later it was back. Stronger this time.

And familiar.

I ignored it and tried to concentrate on my book.

But hang on – was I right in thinking things were starting to feel distinctly wet down below?

Sniff sniff.

And then, with a sinking heart, I knew what had happened. I slipped my hand down onto the crease of the seat behind me and it slid uncomfortably into a horribly familiar damp, warm grit. And I knew at once what that tangy smell must be.

It was a smell of childhood. Or of Friday nights on the train in the run-up to Christmas. Or of hospitals and old peoples’ homes.

Or of uncooked parmesan cheese.

Someone had been sick on the seat.

Ugh. Bleurgh. Ach.

It was no good. I couldn’t concentrate on the book any more. Now that I knew what it was, the smell just got stronger and stronger. It worked its way into the weave of my trousers, and whether it was psychological or not, I don’t know, but all the time my legs just felt wetter, and warmer, and far more unpleasant.

‘It’s OK,’ I told myself. ‘I can sit it out until the end of the line.’ But as we rolled into Ilford, half a lifetime later, I spotted the shops and dashed into a store in The Exchange for a new pair of trousers. I put them on there and then, and walked out with them flapping about my legs.

That was less stupid. It’s so long since I’ve bought new clothes, and it’s been so many weeks since I last saw the gym that I thought I’d perhaps have put on some weight. So I bought a 32in waist.

But they’re far too big, and held up only by virtue of my belt and weaker than average gravity.

So that’s nice. I’m still a 30in waist at the most. Who needs the gym?

Perhaps tomorrow I’ll give it a miss…

Happy Birthday, Jenny. We celebrated by getting all blurry at La Perla.

And I was only going to stop for one…