Well, I was up by 11 despite not sleeping well after the paracetamol and caffiene last night. It was more a night of dozing that proper sleep, not helped by the odd hale shaower battering the window.

Before lunch I listened to the last two CDs in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy collector’s edition box set, ie. the documentries first broadcast in 1998 on Radio 4. The boxed set was my dad’s present to me.

Lunch was the traditional turkey etc. Nothing special.

The rest of the day was pretty well all just watching telly. The only thing of note for the whole evening was the hale setting off my car alarm. This is the first time the alarm’s gone off since a similar hale storm exactly 4 years ago. (exciting, eh?)

This is the 50th entry I’ve made in this holiday diary since I started just over a year ago. I did do one previous version using my Psion before I got my Tréo. Surprisingly, because of the clarity of the screen, it’s actually been easier to write on this Tréo than on the Psion with its better keyboard.

Anyway, on to the events of the day:-

This afternoon, after watching “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” as is traditional at this time of year, we finally got around to putting up the Christmas Tree. After this we had tea before I put on Shrek and Shrek 2 on the DVD. I know that Shrek was on BBC1 a little later but it wasn’t when we were ready for it.

After we’d finished watching those two films it was almost 9pm, at which time “Chocolat” started on BBC2. It was the first time I’d seen that film and I enjoyed it greatly.

So, basically, today’s been a film watching day. Well, the weather outside hasn’t made it condusive for doing anything out there. What with the strong winds and frequent showers, it’s not the best time of the year to he out and about. Also, the sinus headache I’ve only just shaken off with a number of paracetamol with caffiene would’t have helped either.

Oh, and I finished Unreal II. Another anti-climax.

Now all I have to do is try to sleep after taking 1500mg of caffiene in the last 7 hours. It may prove difficult.

This morning I had my first lay in of the holiday. The weather was dark and grey outside so there was little point in getting up anyway.

This afternoon, having nothing better to do returned to playing Unreal II after a hiatus of about 5 months. I finally managed to get past the place I’d become blocked back in July. By 8pm tonight I’d got to another boring boss fight. Oh well, I may leave it for another 5 months now.

And that was the end of my day. Time for bed again.

Today started with a trip into Penzance. It was mostly so that my mum could go to the scoop and save shop but I took the opportunity to visit the big camera shop there as well as MVC.

As it turns out, the camera shop had on sale the nice pistol-grip Manfrotto tripod head I saw some photographers use a few weeks ago. They had it on sale for a mere £79.99, rather less than the list price. However, this head will only fit Manfrotto tripods as it uses a non-standard size thread. Hence, if I were to get one I’d also have to buy a new tripod. Hmm.

Other revealations today included the fact that you can still buy Mamod steam engines and that you can buy train sets which include a digital control system (DCC).

Oh and in MVC I bought a few DVDs in their buy one, get one half price offer. Oh, and my dad bought me Christmas pressie, series 1 & 2 of the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio series. I’ll have to find the recent series for myself elsewhere.

So, other than watching The Prisoner of Azkaban and the two Stargate episodes tonight, that was the whole day.

After a long lay in, I got up at about 11:15am. Lunch ensued and then we went off to Asda in Falmouth to get a new pillow (which should help me get a better night’s sleep) and thence into Helston so that my Dad could pay the money I took out of the Alliance & Leicester account when I closed it into his account. The money is the residue of that which was surplus when we bought this house after moving down from N.Bedfordshire in ’87. It’s going to be used to pay for a new front and back door.

This evening I managed to finish Half-Life 2. I can understand why some of the reviews said that the end was a bit of an anticlimax. Still, at least it didn’t have a big monster at the end and it’s definitely set up for a sequel, or possibly new chapter. It’s also somewhat longer than Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which is good, but somewhat shorter than the original Half-Life or the original Unreal. The one really disappointing thing about the game was thqt it was totally linear with only one route through the whole game.

Anyway, time for bed. Hopefully, the new pillow will give me a better sleep tonight.

The first day back down in Cornwall for the Christmas break. It’s almost exactly 5 calendar months since I started the last set of diary entries for my summer holiday.

It’s surprising what’s changed and what hasn’t changed in that time. Firstly there was Cropredy and meeting the almost grown up Leila which has led to a friendship. Second was the almost constantly busy term at work meaning that I could hardly complete anything fully. If anything it’s been full of mostly finished stuff which I’m sure I’m going to have to revisit so as to do them properly. However, other than that nothing has changed.

As for today, I was up at 7:30am so I could pack and get out by 9:50 to pick up Tom Jordan. Despite the sporadic snow/slush on high ground down to Taunton, the journey was without incident. However, there seems to have been no point to getting the car washed yesterday.

This afternoon/evening we watched “Finding Nemo” on the Disney Channel. This is the first time I’ve seen this film. In my opinion, this seems to be Pixar’s weakest film, though still mostly fun and excellent in places.

Anyway, it’s the end of the day and I’m definitely in need of a sleep.

(Que music from “Vision On”/”Take Hart”)

Yes, I’ve almost completed the transfer of all my digital photos onto my server’s “gallery” server. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending upon your point of view there are no pictures created by children using tissue paper or glitter so it’s not at all like the old television Gallery referred to above. Still, it does make my whole catalogue of photos available online.

Last night I attended a combined leaving do for Kate Hendry (going off to Antarctica for 3 months on Jan 1st) and birthday party for both Kate (who’s birthday is on the 31st December) and Nicola (birthday today).

I got home at about 1:15am..

Photos here. (Yes, I’ve finally installed Gallery as well!)

At 9:30am this morning my ADSL came back online!

Mumble, mumble, BT Wholesale, mumble.