After the excitement of partying last week I was looking forward to a few quiet days to prepare myself for the holidays looming. Trouble is, I think I’ve slowed down too quickly and now struggling to get going at all.

At first I thought it must just be an age thing and adjusting to the southern hemisphere seasons but talking to a few people today made me realise that it’s just because my batteries are flat. It’s been over 4 months since MT and I had a proper holiday and that is falling behind our usual pattern of not going more than three months for a break. In thinking about all this it’s made us realise how big a year we’ve had!

The fact we’ve sold our home, brought our chattels to the other side of the world, left behind family and friends, had to start new jobs and put up with months of anguish about land buying and house building has simply been absorbed and I think we are both now starting to feel the pain a little.

Still, no time to dwell on such matters – still got the Christmas shopping to finish, find a landscape architect and complete another 10 days in the office before we can finally relent. With 2.5 weeks of work over Christmas it will be plenty of time to recharge the batteries and then we’ll return to being at peace with the world again. Well we might do if England do better at the Cricket!