Christmas meal
this weekend was basically about eating. I guess I won't be much of a surprise. Most of our weekends tend to feature eating on some scale or another. This one was a couple of what are becoming traditional Christmas dos having nothing to do with Christmas whatsoever.

The first, the Doctor Who fans Christmas meal (this year hosted by James in Guildford) steered us well away from Christmas into a local Indian restaurant. The same restaurant, in fact, which we ended up in on the evening of my stag night.

It was a really good night, marred only by the fact that I had somehow got the timing wrong, and the meal was taking place a lot earlier than I thought. Consequently we couldn't get a babysitter to cover it and so Lisa to stay at home and miss it.

It sounds like John and Cathy aren't having a terribly good time. John's work, seem to have decided to move his department, lock stock and barrel to India. They suggested there might be the opportunity for John to go out and help train the people replacing him. But he's not keen, not least because they're moving to Mumbai -- the scene this week of the biggest terrorist attack since 911.

Mind you, they have given John, about six months notice. So doesn't need to panic just yet.

Sunday's food fest was Nick's now traditional Christmas Mexican lunch. To which everybody was encouraged to bring their own home-made Mexican treats. Ours was Quorn Mole -- a sauce made from chillis bananas, tomato and chocolate. Sam bought along (as well as the obligatory margaritas) scallop seviche – or raw scallops in lemon juice. Scallops aren't cheap, though, so we all had to make do with an “amuse bouche” - Sam's favourite expression of the moment. An Amuse Bouche is the tiny mouthful of food you sometimes get offered in very posh pretentious restaurants while you wait for your starter to arrive. It's supposed to cleanse your palate - or some such nonsense



E-mail from Gareth.
I got an e-mail, this week from Gareth's e-mail address -- obviously purporting to be from him. Here is the text of it. Take a look at this and see if you think it comes from someone who works as a sub editor on a national magazine:

Hi friend: Introduce you a good website;* www.xmas-buy.com * My friend introduce me this website, it is a large wholesaler who trade mainly in all kinds of electronical products. To my surprise,their products are very low in price and high in quality. I bought an iphone from this website last month, and the iphone works very well! I think it is a shopping paradise which can bring you much benefit, so i want to share it with you!Christmas will come soon,won't you want to present your friends/family/colleague/ etc... the brilliant gifts ?It is really worthy to have a try.Their contact information is: Email: xmas_buy@vip.188.com MSN: xmas-buy@hotmail.com Merry Christmas in advance! best regards!

Hmm… I don't think it's really from him.

Peter’s Christmas drinks
Peter, Lisa's uncle, held his regular Christmas party last night. We took George along, and he spent most of the evening. Crawling around the floor giggling at people. He’s becoming a very sociable baby seems able to remain happy, right up to the point where it falls asleep. Peter's party is always full of characters. One regular there always repeatedly points out how much she loves Sam. Another never fails to miss an opportunity to call Zimbabwe “Rhodesia”. Among the party are always a few people wearing sharp pinstripe suits (Peter lives in an apartment block at Canary Wharf -- somewhere that never quite seems like anybody's home -- you have to sign in reception). I resisted the urge to take a poll in the room of who thought they'd still be in work this time next year -- or next month.