Santa's big helper (now wouldn't this have made a nice Christmas card?)

That'll do for me

Jamie's hand-made "granny photo" for Anja

Danny had his class Christmas show and party this morning. They all went dressed as Santa, here he is after having just put his suit on.

Getting made up by Ima his teacher. Can you tell he doesn't like anyone putting anything on his face?

The santas sang a little song with actions... Danny started out well but his attention and movement tailed off after a minute or so. At one point he gave a huge open mouth yawn, which had quite a few people in fits of giggles, including the three of us.

They had a Christmas party afterwards with snacks and a present from the Three Wise Mens' helpers...

Jamie's class also had a Christmas party

Jamie's class

Rockslide on 'our' motorway

A hillside collapsed onto the main motorway between us and the French border yesterday, halfway between Bilbao and San Sebastian, covering all four carriageways in rocks and burying four cars and a tanker lorry carrying toxic gas(!). Incredibly only one person was slightly injured.

Looking at the footage on the news yesterday this seemed not just incredible but impossible, can you imagine travelling at 80 mph / 120 kph and suddenly ... ?

The motorway was closed all day while they cleared the rubble and debris, and they have just reopened one carriageway this morning.

Rockslide on 'our' motorway

One wonders if this will make them rethink their policy of cutting away hillsides rather than building tunnels. They'll certainly need to look again at all the other sheer rockfaces like this that line this motorway and many others.

It was Jamie's Christmas concert at her music school yesterday. A bit lower key than previous occasions, this was only attended by the parents and various siblings of the kids. Jamie did her piece on the piano, and we had our first chance to watch her play the violin. We were bracing ourselves for a blackboard-fingernail type scenario, but she did it very well, hitting the right strings each time confidently.

The singing was very impressive, they'd obviously practiced the timing a lot. As a group this is the area they've improved the most in the past year.

The kids slightly more visible here

Here's our Christmas pole in the main square

Jamie's school all drew pictures for Constitution Day, to celebrate 27 years of the constitution. Jamie's picture was chosen to represent her class, so she and her friend Carolina posed (and it was an excuse to try out our new camera, a Fujifilm A350)

Here's a close-up of the picture, it's a book (the constitution) with a cake in front of it with two candles on it (2 and 7), with party decorations and the like around the edge - and people inside the decorations, because the constitution is for the people.

Danny didn't want to be left out - he's always got a cheesy grin to spare!

Danny's class at school, with the teaching assistant on the left. 

As you can see, the mat in the corner has another use - it's where the kids take their afternoon siesta. Danny hasn't napped at home for months, but he goes out like a light on the class mat. This is not a typical thing, it's only his teacher who does it. 

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Best friend Oscar in the middle