'Tis the season

It's that time of year again. The decorations are up in houses, shops and offices, green and red lights are lining the street, the morning post brings colourful envelopes containing the best wishes of the season and I have Silent Night and the LiveAid song running in my head (sadly it's the football fan version of the song - "Feed the Scousers, let them know it's Christmas time").

To add to it all, the term's end is drawing closer and closer. Things aren't getting any less busy though. This week is a a killer - three Christmas parties in five days. I know it's a hard life but someone's got to do it. Last night we had two - one at Alex's and then the school end of term do at the Strawberry Moon. Both were good fun.
Leo, Alex, Amelia and Kate spreading the love.

Anna and Emily spreading it some more.

It's not Christmas without crackers. Vanessa's red-eye shows how much we wanted the gifts inside. When I went looking for some I found a really posh set in Sainsbury that contained gifts like tie-pins and mini-staplers. Who wants those out of a cracker? They didn't even have hats or jokes. I'm sure that's sacrilege in some countries.

I found some better ones that actually had hats and jokes and some better(ish) gifts. I got a whoopie cushion. Kate, on the other hand, got a shoe horn (great). Amelia and Anna both got little heart shaped padlocks. I found the keys to both of them so I'm now the privileged owner of the keys to their hearts. Alex says I am a man-whore. I will neither confirm or deny the truth of this.

Povey, (future) QC

Rebecca and Kate

Leo and the returning Riesco

A perfect illustration of why Jun and I should be lawyers and not models

Amelia sans red-eye at last

Jeremy and Liz

Ben, Kate, Jun, Rebecca and I left Alex's to go to the school's party. The Christmas lights along Regent Street on the way there were magic:

The party itself was quite good. The ticket said there would be a surprise special guest. I was kind of hoping for them to bring Denning back from the dead but apparently that was too big an ask so we got a George Michael lookalike tonking out some Wham! instead.

I was in a good mood so have no shame in saying I actually found myself enjoying the cheesier than cheesy music there (I'm talking cheese of the S-Club 7 and Sugababes kind here). We met the guy who fixes the computer in the lecture theatre on our travels through the crowd and Kate got a pic with him:

She told me she'd kill me if I put this photo on the internet but as I will be half away across the world for most of this holiday I'll be too far away to touch and maybe she'll forget about it by the time next term starts.

Ben had a good time too:

It's probably a good thing you can't hear the music he's dancing too.

Jun kindly let me stay at his place afterwards and even cooked up a warm Korean meal for lunch yesterday. I was humbled by his hospitality.

Thank you all for a top night, espescially Alex for having us all round and going above and beyond the call of duty with the mince pies, canapes and decorations. Thanks also to Jun for giving me a bed to sleep in.

Have a good holiday!