All’s well that ends well

Which I guess could be said of 2006. Our December leave was, on the whole, lots of fun. Invariably we needed a holiday from our holiday with all the Christmas exhaustion (see Tinsel Schminsel), but thankfully Jan had planned well ahead! (see Huckleberry Peet).

Other than Christmas, I flew my home-built plane twice, the inaugraul ‘flew’ being somewhat of an overstatement. Turns out that the crappy hobby shop which we’re more-or-less forced to use, sold the wrong propeller to me, which would account for the serious lack-of-power which I was battling with. In any event, the plane itself is very aerodynamically promising, and I look forward to tuning it further. (As an aside, it was most exhilerating being able to crash – a heli doesn’t work well after unscheduled landings, and with a very fortunate none of those to my name, it was quite a novel experience repeatedly smashing the plane into the ground, a tree, a pole and a sandpile.)

We spent most of our days with various friends/family who were visiting – Damo, Rach and Myla, Anton and Tandy, Al and Tess and my brother down from Edinburgh. All have since returned to their nether-regions, but it was excellent catching up. Anton introduced me to the late (and evidently great) Jeff Buckley (what rock have I been under, you might ask), and I’m thoroughly enjoying new, good music. I introduced my younger boet to sushi, and I thoroughly enjoyed his face while experiencing nori for the first time.

For the sake of a record, might I add that the weather has been about the best this summer that I can remember in recent seasons, with little wind to speak of.