Holy cow it's 2007

Remembering to write '2006' on stuff still took effort! Now I got worries.

I am back in England and the forecast is rain for the next four days. Sigh. At least I survived my first day back at work. Survived it by avoiding all the urgent stuff (that will, once I reacquaint myself with it, reduce me to semi-hysterical panic) and sorting through my inbox, taking down Christmas tinsel, putting books in alphabetical order, setting up my 2007 day planner, and making my desk area immaculate. I am tempted to leave the out-of-office assistant on for the next two weeks while I wade through everything I had hoped to get done before the holidays. Oh well. Stress ... keeps you young, you know?

The holidays went by far too fast, and yet they were escapist, almost as though the intervening year never happened. I had some great visits with much-missed friends and family, but didn't see nearly enough of anyone, didn't even see everyone I wanted to, and tragically failed to make it to Sephora. (They have stores in Paris, so that's my next goal.) I did fit some shopping in, though. It's much more fun to spend British pounds in Canada than to watch your Canadian savings vaporize while unemployed in Britain. Since I can't gloat about having had a nice white Christmas, I am instead reveling in the fact that I bought jeans and a skirt for the equivalent of nine pounds total. The last jeans I bought here cost forty pounds, and the last skirt fifty pounds, for comparison. (I love Monsoon, but it's expensive!)

Some highlights of the trip home:

Discovering that the last house we lived in is, against all odds, still standing;

Feeling Canadian in my hometown (skating, hot apple cider, and toques!);

And experiencing two days of winter before it melted away again.