Xmas musings

So this is Xmas. Currently we are at murasaki_1966's parents place up at Lake Macquarie, where we have brought the rain with us from Canberra.

Apart from the nephews (more later) this holiday season has been immersed in rain punctuated by staccato bursts of coughing, limiting both our mobility and our sociability. Our recovery seems timed to coincide with our return to work, hopefully we'll have enough energy for NYE.

It's been an appalling year for many of us, so many losses, so I'm trying to face the new year with renewed, but not entirely justified, hope.

And speaking of hope - the nephews! Named independently, yet confusingly, Lucas and Luke.

Lucas is my brother's son, five years old and resident in Yorkshire, necessitating a flying trip from my brother to bring him over for Xmas and back to the UK in time for the start of the school year.

He is, of course, absolutely gorgeous. And he took to me immediately, subjecting me to the various indignities of being spat on by a penguin or mauled by a magpie, instruments of torment we had unwittingly provided him with under the guise of Xmas presents.

We will see him again in the new year, just before he returns. And then it will be another two years or so. This may necessitate some letter writing in the interim.

Nephew deux, aka Luke, is still at the larvael stage, at 18 weeks of age. So his impromptu carrolling was, let us say, disappointing. As was his tolerance to brandy. At least he bonded well with our present to him, a dragon named Bartholomew. Unfortunately we had to make do with a stuffed toy version, but I'm hoping that advances in bioengineering will allow us to present him with a working version nce he is of age.

Apart from the nephews, our time has been spent reading. We have been working our way through the Bryant and May mysteries, I've just finished The Seventy Seven Clocks and, for a change of pace, am now wading through the post-modern quagmire of House of Leaves.

And now, murasaki_1966 is cross stitching and the world is filled with the sound of cicadas.