Dear friends, I hope you all had a good Christmas, whatever Christmas means to you, and a chance to rest and to catch up with your nearest and dearest, hopefully without some kind of board game induced family breakdown (though those are also some essential part of the holiday season.)
I had to work Christmas Day so spent the first hours driving through a blissfully, eerily empty England, listening to Classic FM's dulcet tones and going very, very fast around roundabouts. But before that, when I woke up at 5am, Tim insisted on giving me my present, which was...
!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah I know! Exciting, right?
I was excited.
A zoom lens!
Excited and slightly concerned about how much money this present may have cost.
So excited I...
...
....
....
...
I see.
An ingenious cup!!!
At this point I was possibly even more delighted, due to relief partly that he hadn't got me a ridiculously expensive gift, and partly because I'd noticed it didn't say Canon on the 'lens' and was wondering how to break it to him that it just wasn't going to fit my camera. But that was fine, because it was going to fit my MOUTH.
....
Except
then he brought out this one too.
An actual zoom lens.
And this one says Canon on it.
Thanks Tim!
So if you have a camera-loving partner and want to set them up for a fall on a special day....this is definitely the way to do it. I for one was unbelievably impressed. Even now when I suddenly catch sight of it lying around on the worksurface, it makes my heart tighten just a little bit in momentary anxiety because a camera lens really shouldn't be lying around in the kitchen like that...
And take it from me - you wouldn't even have to buy them a real lens afterwards. Though that was also tremendous.
***
So I had a lovely Christmas break at the in-laws, and looking forward to spending New Year's at my family's too. Christmas Day, however, was spent with the Bennetts - very tolerant and generous souls to whose house I'd summarily invited myself at Christmas as they were the only people I knew in Reading - and by people, I mean, their son, whom i met in New Zealand. Moral of the story: don't live in Reading. They fed me and entertained me and also gave me a tremendously generous stocking filled with goods, which made what could have been a somewhat depressing Christmas Day a very lovely one instead. So thank you, Bennetts. Thenetts.
***
While I was in NZ, I really, really, really missed the whole build up to Christmas, especially the cold weather, and the mulled wine, and the Christmas markets, and the bratwurst, and the mistletoe, and mince pies, and stollen, and panettone, and all the SEASONAL TAT that comes with Christmas. And it was so so so so so nice to have that again this year. Although i haven't managed to eat quite as much turkey, panettone, mince pies, and mulled wine as I'd hoped. And in fact not a morsel of stollen (if such an item can be counted in morsels) has passed my lips. What kind of Christmas is this?
***
Great book I read this Christmas: Being Mortal - excellent and insightful meditation on ageing and death and the way we tackle these natural processes in medicine (clue: unbelievably poorly). Very interesting read - and lots of good ideas. It gave me a lot to think about - particularly the communication model of the ''informative doctor'' and how this, though it seems to be promising patient autonomy, can actually trap everyone in a futile diminishing cycle of suffering and overtreatment. Eye opening stuff, I recommend it to all.
Much less high brow: Crossy Road. http://www.crossyroad.com/ Perhaps the best (and free) ipad game I've yet experienced. Even though it is basically Frogger, it is so much better than Frogger. Like woah. And you can play as a kiwi. Sold.
***
Enough Christmas musings for now, time to think up some New Year's resolutions and see you in 2015.
Love to one and all.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
