December's here

Haven't got around to updating for a while here, sorry about that. After a frantically busy November work wise, I've been taking a well-deserved breather the past couple of days - before the next set of deadlines, which are looming just around the corner.

Yesterday we went Christmas shopping with Anja (Carmen's mum). We went looking for a bike for Jamie, but it turns out that nobody sells bikes above toddler size with chain guards on them. Either this is some sick fashion, or nobody in Spain understands anything about kids and bikes. Jamie's already come home with torn, oily clothes after borrowing a friend's bike. Adult bikes with chain guards - plenty of them. Kids'? Not a single one in 3 hypermarkets and 2 sporting superstores.

We treated ourselves to a new espresso machine, after we had to reluctantly give up on our beautiful Krups. We sent it in for repair in March, and finally got a definite quote in September - 200 euros, which is very nearly what we originally paid for the thing. (When we sent it away it was leaking but still working, but of course by the time we got it back it was completely #$*%ed). So we decided to spend the money on a new machine, and picked out a suitably black and moody looking Philips espresso maker. Unfortunately when we got it home it didn't meet our expectations at all (apart from the fact that the coffee tastes excellent), so it's going back tomorrow. I think we may be borrowing Anja's Senseo machine with a view to buying our own later - certainly a lot cheaper than an espresso machine, and a lot less fiddly.

Jamie had lunch with friends from school, whose mum then picked up Daniel from the crèche at 3 after she dropped the girls back at school. He didn't mind being picked up by her, unannounced (although of course we'd told the crèche) and apparently had a great time out at their holiday chalets in the countryside. He was in the best of spirits when we got back at 6 and picked him up.

Jamie is getting very excited in the run-up to the various present-giving events. We are in a pretty unique position in that, with our 3 nationalities, we have potentially 3 different gift-givers on three different dates - Sinterklaas on 5 Dec, Father Christmas on 24/25 Dec and the Three Wise Men (Reyes Magos) on 6 January. Followed closely by Jamie's birthday on 15 January …! We try to pick one of these as the main one, but inevitably other family members give gifts on the other dates - but that's fun as well. She's still at that enviably innocent age and believes in all of them. So with Anja going home to Holland tomorrow, the Reyes Magos visited us last night to leave presents for Anja to take back to Holland with her for Frank! Just like what Sinterklaas did in Holland just before Anja came here (never mind the fact that Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of St Nicholas, lives in Spain the rest of the year) with presents for Jamie and Danny.

I have been out jogging and cycling regularly recently. On Tuesday afternoon I took a route jogging that I hadn't taken since last summer, with Jason. It's a circuit to La Acebosa, about 7 km with a steady incline rising by about 60m, plus some rises and dips in between. Last summer I kept having to stop because of cramp in my calf muscles, which is part of the reason I hadn't tried it since, but it went like a dream this time. I'm really pleased with the way my fitness level has been increasing steadily.

Work has been piling in again in the past few days, this time from my favourite NGO, known here as our 'mortgage sponsor'. They hadn't actually sent me that much work so far this year, which had been a niggling worry at times as they had contributed to a large proportion of turnover in the past. They have made up for it in the past couple of weeks though - I'm fully booked with work for them for the next 12 days, plus I've farmed out a big Russian job for them - nice.