Tales of a Trainee American

Firstly a belated Merry Christmas to all of my readers!

To answer my own question, we ended up going into a not-too-busy Cribbs Causeway on the way down. No queues to get in, not packed out, and we managed to buy presents for everyone (except my present to Alexis).

To suzylou, okay, I know you really really want to drop as soon as possible, but hanging on 'til the 5th would be acceptably cool.

We now have a far more confident little girl than we did a week ago. She's learned so much (though not talking or walking, but walking can't be far off now!), most importantly my dad taught her to blow raspberries. She probably thinks it's an advanced form of communication. She also has New Toys, including a generic Box-o-Wooden-Blocks which the adults had more fun with than she did. She can feed herself (with her fingers - messy and not totally effective but it keeps her happy and busy!), shows off, cruises and crawls everywhere.

We have various DVDs (BSG season 3, Bourne Trilogy - just watched Ultimatum, yep, agree, excellent, please end the series now thank you, HP&tOotP, seen too, amazing how the worst book with the worst bits taken out makes the (second?) best film so far, and some odd Japanese kids' cartoons), calendars, and other bits and bobs.

All a bit disjointed as reports go but it's been done piecemeal over the course of several hours so I'll just hit 'Post' and be done.

A description of the weather, not the place (though to be fair between October and April, it really is rather a dull place to live).

We were down visiting my family and showing off Aliza to assorted relatives. My folks may not be as noisy as Alexis's, but they know how to coo over a baby!

Meanwhile I was playing bridge in the English Riviera Congress, with mixed results. Our team-mates let go a couple of matches we should've won, and in the pairs it was a tale of two days: Saturday great (4 wins and a draw out of 7 matches) for 84/140 VPs. Sunday was awful (1 win and 5 losses) for 15/100 VPs, a total of 99/240 - when we were odds on to be better than 50% overnight. Disappointing!

Monday was Alexis's birthday; she was surprised (a difficult thing to achieve!) by her present from me. We drove round the South Hams, with fish and chips in Torcross for lunch, before the showery drive back home.

Today: another day off, but I'm heading down to Lord's later where hopefully I'll be watching Middlesex vs. Surrey in the Twenty20 cup. Given the current weather pattern of sunny spells with short sharp heavy showers, there should be some cricket, but exactly how much it remains to be seen.

Okay, so it's not really his birthday, but it is the birthday of three English cricketers, one of whom is currently touring Australia with England, and two who I'd dearly love to have seen out there, not least because we'd have had a far better chance of winning with them than without (assuming their best form, etc).

But I digress. This is my first Christmas I've not spent with my parents (and I'm the last of their three children to do so, despite being the eldest - Kathryn has done Christmas in both Canada and New Zealand, and Sara went to her in-laws last year). However, certain traditions have been kept alive. For instance, pains au chocolat for breakfast. And buck's fizz. Except I'm the only person in this household who drinks alcomohol, and there's a whole bottle of Cava to get through. Rather, was. There ain't much left right now. Hic!

I'm playing Guitar Hero some, too... but it doesn't half knacker up your fingers (and I'm only playing on Easy!) So I'm taking a break and typing instead: how sensible of me.