Hm, given recent performance on frequency of me remembering to write to you folks, perhaps fortnightly is more achievable than weekly...

Anyway, what have I done since Cologne? Well, lots really. I was ill, I updated my website with photos from this spring, I went to parties, I went to work, I drank beer, I drank cocktails, and recently I've been drinking Glühwein because the Christmas markets have started here in Munich.

Things of note:

I saw the film Shortbus. Wow! It is one of my top two films of this year! Exceptionally sexually explicit, but the sex really isn't the focus of the film. I don't know how to describe it in brief. I've had long long debates about this film with people. All I can say is SEE IT!!

I caught up with friends of mine who I really haven't seen in ages, like Roland, Rudi, Matthias S (there are quite a few Matthiases in Munich...), Holger, Florian, Andy, Ralf, Galina, Phil, Petar, Fadil... We're talking lots of coffee/beer/cocktails!

My friend Oliver (who is Jewish and lived in Israel for a few years) invited me and five other friends of his to enjoy a Sabbath dinner with him one Friday. Oliver cooked up a Mediterranean storm, and I had the honour of doing a reading from the Torah (not in Hebrew, but in English, you'll be relieved to hear). And he ordered LOTS of wine from Israel online. Yum!! It was a terribly grown-up affair, with lots of serious conversation and stuf, but I really enjoyed it because I haven't had chats like that for ages.

My good friend Lisa from Dublin came to visit for a weekend. She arrived just as the Christkindlmärkte (Christmas markets) were opening for the first weekend of Advent. Her timing was impeccable: Glühwein-a-gogo!! We drank stupendous amounts of all sorts of drinks over the weekend, from beer to wine to Glühwein to cocktails to Hot Caipirinha (it's how Lemsip would be if it had been invented in Brazil) to Hot Coconut (coconut milk with rum - ooh yeah baby!) to home-made elderberry schnaps from our village in Austria. And we made time to see the new Bond film too. And eat well as well. And chat! Well, we had lots of catching up to do since February in London.

So I enter upon the first full week of December with a bit of a headache. Is it from the up-and-down weather, that doesn't know whether to be properly cold? Or is it my liver saying "oi! stop that!"?

And then of course I'm off to Istanbul tomorrow...