wellinghall | A little New Year's Day post

We've been to

prince_eldarion's New Year / Housewarming moot. A Good Time [TM] was had by all; well, I know it was by us, and everyone else seemed to be having one too. A big thank you goes to our hosts for looking after us so well, and cooking vast amounts of food.

We also saw lots of other people, including

tovaglia and

lanciatore;

pellegrina;

phina_v;

king_pellinor and

ladyofastolat;

pennypaperbrain; and lots of other SocT old-timers, together with partners and small children. Speaking of which,

prince_eldarion chose New Year's Eve to walk for the first time! (well, so I'm told, but I was looking away at the time; but at least his Mum caught it). We hope to see many of you again at the banquet in, ooh, less than six weeks' time!

Fun was had with a Wii; an eyetoy and dance mat; board games (

king_pellinor is entirely too good at settling new islands); and BEER.

We were actually staying with MastermindChampion, who has a cough but is otherwise well. He was good enough to bring us back here today, so we gave him lunch.

Before all that, we had a trip to London, for Alice in Wonderland danced by the English National Ballet; pretty enoyable, even to a non-ballet fan (and even if I did miss the Mad Hatter and the March Hare trying to stuff the Dormouse into the teapot!) We didn't see the big exhibitions (lack of organisation, available space, or both), but we did see a mini-exhibition of Dutch Winter Scenes; Modern Masters: Manet to Picasso; and some regular exhibits; all at the National Gallery. We have more London trips planned; Spamalot and The Marriage of Figaro later this month; The Lord of the Rings on stage in May; and Creatrix is going to a ballet triple-bill with her mother in June.

Creatrix is currently in the kitchen, cooking a chicken casserole; I need to get together work and train passes for my return to work tomorrow; there are some emails to reply to; and some general tidying-up wouldn't go amiss. We're also going to find time to watch Sarah Jane Smith, and then The Wind in the Willows.

Some of you will already know this, but the next two months are going to be really busy for me at work. Early mornings, late evenings, and even weekends in the office are all going to be the norm for me. So posts, comments, emails and civility might all suffer. You have been warned!