Oh goodness gracious me! I haven't even written about December yet, and here we are in February!

Okay, here goes:

Well, in a nutshell, I could sum the month up as Glühwein with friends. I had visitors in Munich every weekend of Advent (Matthias was up from Zurich for w/e 26th Nov, Rich was here from New York for w/e 3rd Dec, Lisa, Rob & Mirèia were here from Dublin and Zurich for w/e 10th Dec, and Kate & Simon were here from New York & London for w/e 17th Dec). And a good few Glühweins and other beverages with Munich-based friends in between weekends.

Putting a little more flesh on those outlines, I met Susi for a burger and cocktails in the Martini Club; I met Colin & got to know Josephine at Quattro Tavoli, a delightful Italian that I mean to see lots more of; I headed to the EPO Sky Bar for a Latino evening with the French girls; I had Karin over for port & cheese; I went to a play with Christian, Sabine & Rudi; I visited the marvellous one-day-only Christmas Market at Benediktbeuern with Rich, Harry & Dieter; I hung out at the Pink Xmas with Steffi, Werner, Thomas, Bernhard, Josef, Markus & Fashant; I had a Christmas dinner with my Bosch colleagues/friends/crew in Stuttgart; I had a Christmas dinner with my BVIW crew in Munich (along with too much dodgy Turkish white wine); I hit Winter Tollwood with Lisa, Rob, Mirèia, Bénédicte, Kim & Linda; I had post-choir drinks with Uli, Heidrun, Bernd & Martin; I had dinner with Veronika; I had drinkies with Jürgen & Nina; I went to Stammtisch; and I lunched with Michaela to do a spot of Xmas shopping.

And then it was time to fly to England for Christmas! Everyone was thinking the weather might be shite again like it had been the previous two years, but in the end nobody's flights were grounded by snow chaos and all went well. Christmas at Chris & Kate's with Michaela and all my nieces and nephews was just WONDERFUL!!!!!!! We ate stupendous amounts, went to the panto in Guildford, went to a musical (Lion King) in London, visited cousin Bob & Iris, and generally had a lovely time. Then, with Michaela and the boys, we visited Kev & Cath and their girls. So lovely! The walk across the Downs on New Year's Eve to the gastropub - and the food - was also marvellous.

New Year's Eve at XXL in London with Hugh, Lee, Paolo, Frank, Greg, Rich, Steve & Jürgen was out of this world. Suffice to say that the queue for the cloakroom to leave again was so long, when I joined it at 4.15am it snaked right through one of the dancefloors - and it took me until 5am to reach the desk! The next few days catching up with people in London (Selena, Claire & Jamie, Em, Tanya & Jezza and their babies, Julie Ju for culture and Chinese food in town, and Hugh again for pie & mash south of the river) was delightful too, as was my cheeky weekend in Denmark visiting Rasmus & Lene and being astounded by how incredibly fluent Johan's English is all of a sudden.

Okay, so we're into January now, but who cares? I didn't start back at work until 9th so I'm just going to treat everything up to that point as Chrimbo.

There. Done. Happy New Year (if it isn't too late to wish everyone reading these words that)!!!