End of the Year

It is my birthday tomorrow. I could get used to three day weeks followed by a weekend of parties involving all of my friends. Work has been busy but it has been nice to be back (and even nicer knowing it was only three days). It is the sign of the right job I think when you are pleased to be there. Obviously I very much enjoyed my time off but it would not be special if it happened all the time. I am now back at work until the first week of February whereon we are off to Finland for a week for a wedding. It is becoming something of a trend (if 3 years in a row can be termed a trend) of taking a holiday in February or March. In 2006 we went to the French/Italian border to go snowboarding. In 2007 we spent 2 weeks in Morocco. In 2008 we shall spend a week in Finland. It is rather nice having something to look forward to in that dull patch between the excitement of Christmas/New Year/Birthday and the arrival of spring. It is also nice to get some sunshine, winter or otherwise, or at least a break from the London rain. We didn't even get a dusting of snow as promised by the weatherman here in London yesterday, just some bloody cold drizzle around lunchtime.

Now, since this blog is supposedly about parties and book reviews I perhaps should get round to writing some more. Christmas has always traditionally been a time in our house where many books are exchanged and read. This year has been no exception, although so far I have read far more non-fiction than fiction. My stocking contained several books including one from the Caper Court series by Caro Fraser which I had not read. As she also published the 7th last November I shall be trying to track that one down too. I used some present money to buy Debrett's Etiquette for Girls (Fleur Britten) and A Girl for All Seasons (Camilla Morton) both of which were enjoyable reads, the former being a lot more accurate than the latter (Morton appears to think that 1918 was during the Second World War, which didn't exactly endear me to the remainder of the text). Last night I finished reading The Insider by Piers Morgan (tag line - the private diaries of a scandalous decade). It was an interesting read and I couldn't decide if Morgan was simply embracing his role as a tabloid editor or was in fact an arrogant p***k. Or a combination of the two. Without reading the combined diaries the Blairs, Campbell, Murdoch, Wade, various members of the Royal Family and many many others it is hard to say whether or not he portrayed private meetings accurately but he seemed to embody the phrase "if you don't ask, you'll never know".

Birthday Weekend

The period of 23-26 June seems to contain a large number of my friends birthdays. I'm not sure what happens at the end of September to make it such a popular time to conceive a child but tomorrow is shared by my father and good friends S and C; the 24th is M and then H and K celebrate theirs on the 26th. So an expensive few days.

We took the train to Berkshire this afternoon to visit my parents and have supper with both sets of grandparents. This is the first year for several years that we have not gone to Glastonbury and the train we caught contained several of the stragglers who couldn't take the time off work and had missed Friday's performance. To my mind, it seems odd not to go for the whole festival; I would rather not go than only go for half. Anyhow, watching some of the action from the pyramid stage this evening on the BBC was rather peculiar. It was almost as if I was watching a performance that I had been to, as my brain couldn't seem to get around the fact that it hadn't been there, so familiar was the sight of the flags waving, silhouetted against the lights of the stage, the crowd cheering, dancing, singing and moving as one. The only difference is that I am warm and dry and not wearing a plastic coat and I can sleep in a proper bed. And judging from the Arctic Monkeys rather dismal performance, I'm not missing too much either (at the moment).