Happy New Year

A very pleasant, very quiet Christmas and New Year for us then. Ventured out of the house all of three times, maybe four at a push, and stayed in on New Year's Eve in the company of about four bottles of wine with which we got on famously.

Back in work now and after one of the worst nights' sleep I've ever had (last night - started to drift off only for next doors' burglar alarm to go off, then the police helicopter started circling, then I woke at 2.30 thinking I'd overslept and only twigged when I went into the bathroom for a shower and wondered why it was so cold, then couldn't get back to sleep again in fear that I really *would* oversleep...) I'm in Leeds running my first course of the year - a 2071, which is doing the usual and stubbornly refusing to be squeezed into two days.

If I was still at X*e$t^s! I'd be at the annual Ker-Plunk-A-Thon tomorrow and Saturday morning. Thankfully I'm not. Hurrah.

Had a very busy day over the Christmas holidays helping Microsoft with two of the CRM v3 exams, proofreading them and testing them out. Very interesting, but knackering doing 250 questions in 10 hours (plus writing comments and documentation) and it gave me a *monster* headache! Hope to be involved with more of the same soon. CRM 3 looks marvellous - can't wait for the courses to go public.

Talking of Microsoft I've just finished reading "Microserfs" by the fantastic Douglas Coupland. I read it a couple of years ago and didn't enjoy it at all, but bought it again, started it on Monday and finished it last night. Fantastic stuff. Currently reading - and am not yet sure about - "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt. Feel like I'm not getting anywhere with it but that's strange seeing as I read 140 pages of it today.

And a bit of mega news... tonight I lost patience waiting for Lou to get her finger out so I went to the Trafford Centre and booked one of our holidays. Lindos 2006 is booked and only eight months away! We'll be there on Lou's birthday too. Next stop, book the June holiday, which we'll probably do this weekend and looks likely to be Santorini around my birthday. Huzzah!