The New Year didn't stay quiet for long. After the lull on 1st January, things picked up again quickly on 2nd January, with a return to work (it felt like ages since I had been at my desk!), lunch with Charlotte (who was over again from the UK visiting Lorna) and drinks & Mexican food in the evening with Charlotte, Lorna, Michaela & Margit in town. And that wasn't the end of that: late that evening, Simon flew in from The Hague to spend a few days with me.

I left him to his own devices during the day (I lent him my bike - well he IS Dutch after all) but of an evening I showed him some of the highlights of Munich: we ate delicious international veggie food at Prince Myshkin, we ate delicious Bavarian veggie food (they really do have some, it's not just pig meat here!) at the Fraunhofer - where we ran into Harry and a couple of friends of his who were in town for the folk music festival - and we had a few drinks here and there in the Glockenbachviertel area of town.

Simon went back to Holland on Friday evening, but I had a full weekend nonetheless: on Saturday morning I headed over to Michaela's for brunch with Wolfi, Margit, Denis & the kids before they headed back to Swabia. Michaela and I moved some furniture around that afternoon, and then in the evening I went to my friend Roland's birthday party. I was a bit apprehensive, as he was the only person I knew I knew who would be there, but in the end (of course) it was a great party, and I'm sure I'll see some of the folk I met again soon.

On Sunday evening I headed to a party at the New York Club disco to catch up with a bunch of people I hadn't seen in weeks and weeks, and it was really nice! I felt a bit cheeky and shallow because I was in full social-butterfly mode, chatting with friends but simultaneously looking over their shoulders to see who I should talk to next. But it was lovely to have a quick word with so many friends, and I'll see them again soon individually - or at least I hope to.

Monday 8th January saw my official return to badminton playing after several months off following injury to my left foot. Okay, and laziness. And a decision to prioritise boozy gatherings over sport. Oh dear! Well, it was a real joy to be back on court. I made sure I didn't overdo it, playing for just over an hour instead of the usual 2 1/2 hour stint; I think that's how I hurt my foot the last time I played. And then I went home and did lots of stretches, even more than I usually do. I seem to have got away with it...

I went for Schnitzel with my mate Harry on Tuesday night. We headed back to the restaurant we visited back in the summer. This time we were in the U-Bahn, not on the bikes, and we sat inside - although it's almost warm enough to sit out; this winter just hasn't happened at all, it's just an extended autumn. What is the world coming to? Still, I think I prefer this to last winter's interminable freeze.

Wednesday night started with a spot of shopping after work. I had to take my phone to be mended (bloody SonyEricsson piece of shite! but it takes a nice photo) and Susanne had to buy snowboarding gloves, so we accompanied each other on our errands and then finished with a coffee. It was amusing: the woman in the phone shop fully assumed we were man and wife! She must have noted our playful banter and jumped to a conclusion. When we protested, she said, "okay, girlfriend then". We didn't bother to put her right...

And then I met up with Phil, Lorna and a couple of other E.On-ites for cocktails in the Hard Rock Café. Tomasz joined us later, as we sat and ate enormous piles of nachos and drank our way through the menu. We headed across to Nero, a nice Italian place round the corner from my work that has a delightful mezzanine floor overlooking the stone pizza oven, for one last cocktail before heading home.

On Thursday my mate Michael who owns the organic supermarket at Giesing station popped over for dinner. He brought some fabulous organic steaks and we had a feast with red wine and a good chat (I haven't seen Michael in ages, even though he lives literally three doors down from me).

And the weekday/weekend changeover fun plan saw me meeting Ferdinand at the Haidhausener Augustiner, where I haven't been in way too long, before heading over to his to get stuck into some of his home-made schnapses - yum!!

The weekend was unseasonably mild - again! - and I met Ferdinand again on Saturday afternoon for a bit of a bike ride along the Isar, only to discover that my bike is about to fall apart! Somehow the chilly winter weather (what little there has been) made half the spokes in my back wheel come loose. So we quickly abandoned the bikes and instead walked along the banks of the river, enjoying the afternoon sun, before having a beer and a scrummy gulasch soup at a diddy little beer garden on the riverside.

On Sunday evening I was at Michaela's again. What was supposed to be a boring filing/tidying appointment turned into a boozy red wine party with Diane and Mary. I also had the pleasure (which is so close to pain!) of playing with Ryan, Charlie, Mary's boychild Niall and Diane's son Robert. They are all of an age now where you can really throw them through the air and they don't cry when they land. It's great! I love being Evil Uncle Rich sometimes...