Right, February:

I had dinner at Béné's with Marie-Laure, Ramón, Corinne & Eric. I caught up with Robert & Ron from San Francisco. I had dinner at Felix & Sebastian's. I caught up with Rudi. I went to a Carnival fancy-dress ball with Jo & her friend Julia, and met Klaus there.

I had singing lessons. For the first time in my life. Fabulous! I had a never-ending series of meetings with builders, plumbers, electricians, tilers, painters, glaziers, carpenters, and most importantly with Ernst from my choir, without whom my renovation work would have taken at least 9 months longer and would have cost 9 times much - of that I'm sure!

And Billy flew in from Hong Kong to round off the shortest month. We went for dinner, we went for drinks, we went for breakfast, we went for coffee, it was all good!

Now March:

I went for a lovely cycle ride with Rudi out to the Isartalbahnhof, then to the Asamschlössl, and on to the pop-up art space exhibition thing in the old Rangierbahnhof beim Flaucher. Crazy weird excellent art!

I went to Christian's for his annual Kasspatzn dinner. And by jiminy they were good! All the Stammtisch crew were there too, as were Michaela & Charlie, and everyone was impressed with his cuisine. Mmmm!

We had a choir weekend away in Pfronten. Unlike last year, where we were snowed in, this year the weather was clement and we could even go for a nice walk on the Saturday.

Paul was over from London with some mates, and I went for drinks with them to the Hofbräuhaus. I went to the Bavarian Mr Leather election night and caught up with Rudi, Klaus, Daniel, another Christian, and of course Kay & Tom.

We went down to Greinsfurth at the end of March for Martha's belated 50th birthday party. It was a blast! The Mostheuriger just the other side of Amstetten from us was delightful, with a FINE selection of award-winning schnapses! And it was nice but weird but nice to be staying at Berger's again.

And the last weekend of March was when I MOVED HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, all the renovation work got done in under two months - despite the flooding incident, where a minor explosion of my new water meter sent hundreds of litres of water into the downstairs supermarket at 6 in the morning!

OMG my new flat is AMAZING, by the way!!! Everyone, you all have to come and see it!

Yes, ALL RIGHT, it's June, and I haven't even finished last year yet. Well, I've had quite a bit on my plate, okay? Which I'll tell you all about - in due course...

So, December. Well, it was quite a mild one. No heaps of snow, no walls of ice. Didn't stop people drinking Glühwein though. Me included.

I had Tye and a whole bunch of his Kiwi family in town, and I took them to the fabulous upstairs bit of the Hofbräuhaus for proper Schuhplatteln, music, dancing, and of course drinking and eating. They loved it!

For Xmas proper I was at Chris & Kate's in Guildford, as were Michaela, Russ & the boys. It was lovely - and I didn't get snowed in! But we almost couldn't land, it was so stormy, rainy & windy...

For New Year I was in Antalya, on Turkey's south coast, with the lovely Lorna. We spent a week there in slightly iffy weather, doing lots of walking around through the Old Town and across lots of ruins from Antiquity. The Antalya Museum is off-the-scale good, by the way.

And then it was January. Al was over from Washington and I took him for dinner at the Korean noodle place. Graham & Frik were over from London with some mates, and I took them to the Ratskeller for a drink.

I had a viewing of my flat and had 50-odd people through my place in under half an hour! Something told me they wouldn't have any difficulty finding a tenant to replace me...

Then I had a cheeky weekend away in Amsterdam - well, I couldn't just sit there and listen to Toni & Béné going on about how they were going to coincidentally be there at the same time and NOT join them!! It was fabulous. Mélo had organised a post-New Year party in a brasserie and it was lots of fun.

The next evening I had dinner with Béné, Véro, Nath and Kim & Linda with their baby son Duuk. That evening I went partying with Toni and we had LOTS of fun. Then a final day of sightseeing and I flew home. It was unusual for me to see so much of Amsterdam proper, rather than buggering off to visit friends outside. Nice!

Later in January I had a weekend of culture, with a small musical theatre production about Ernest Hemingway in the Steinwayhalle followed by a concert in the Herz-Jesu-Kirche, a huge cuboid of modernist Catholic architecture.

The month ended with me FINALLY getting the keys to my new flat!! (I mean, honestly: I'd signed the purchase contract before Christmas - and there was a shedload of renovation that needed doing!)