A happy and relaxing couple of days with our families. Both back at work now, but feeling the benefits. This photo is rather blurry but the only one we seem to have taken in Swallowfield, around midday on the 25th before Picul went off to Jim's family. It has suitably festive elements such as tree and satsumas at least.

My last day at work before Christmas today, though I'm back in on the 27th. We went to see Blade Runner on Monday night, the new print/cut, which looked very snazzy on the big screen. It was on at the Gate cinema in Notting Hill which we'd not been to before, and we agreed that it had very comfy seats and adequate heating (two things that the Ealing fleapit lacks). Felt good to go out for a change - it's so cold at the moment that we've just been staying in watching re-runs of Doctor Who and Inspector Morse most evenings. I have managed to do most of my minimal Christmas shopping so this weekend should be fairly relaxed, and I'll potter over to mum and dad's at some point on Sunday - probably to be joined later by M, who has another cluster of book deadlines to meet before he can get too festive.

Eep, have already missed the last Christmas post for USA, Canada and EU, so must must write cards this weekend so that at least the UK people get theirs before new year. Things have finally quietened down with work for M, but it has been busy for the last week or so, I haven't been too well and we were knocked out at work with interviews and the pre-holiday rush. Looking forward to a quietish weekend with minimal shopping and indeed leaving the flat; S is coming over on Sunday for lunch and to watch West Side Story. M is at a lecture tonight, and I just had a lovely end-of-week evening unwinding at Ry's learning how to play Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii and eating Graeme's winter veggie stew, hurrah.

I have agreed to do some dialect coaching for a production of Knives in Hens at the local Questors Theatre. The location is not too specific (a village in pre-industrial Scotland), but I've decided to coach them in a Central Scots accent without the particularly distinctive aspects of the accents of the north-east, the highlands and islands, or the borders - the sort of thing that can be heard here, here (3, 9 and 11) and here.
Not much else is new - R drove down from Beaconsfield for dinner last Friday, which was great, Picul had a very elegant cucumber-sandwich sort of birthday party on Sunday (and I visited K and M and their new baby daughter on the way there), and on Monday M and I went to the British Museum to see the terracotta army (a Merton freebie thanks to the Warden's Chinese connections). M is hugely busy and burning the candle at both ends to complete various book-related tasks and write promised articles, but I hope things will ease off next week.