Christmas, 2007 Edition

I hope you all had a nice a great Christmas and enjoyed the break!

My Christmas, in a nutshell:

• Perhaps not unusually at Christmas time, I ate like I just found out food was about to be discontinued. My sister is a pretty good cook, and the menu was so heavy in my childhood favourites that I was powerless to resist! Powerless.
  
• It was actually cold on Christmas Day where my sister lives. I'm so used to sweltering on Christmas Day that it felt weird to have to go hunting for a jacket to wear.
  
• I shot a heap of photos while I was away. The two things I took endless pictures of this holiday? Architecture and pets. My sister lives in an extremely pretty ex-Goldrush town (Ballarat) which is full of beautifully preserved Victorian buildings and wide, wide streets. Then I stayed in Melbourne just around the corner from the funky Chapel Street, with my friend Robbie. If you look up above the shops at street level, Chapel Street has some amazing vintage buildings.
  
• Oh, and both Robbie and my sister both have super cute pets which of course needed to be photographed! (Pictures to come)
  
• I dazzled my family with the sheer fantasticness of my gifts this year. Bluetooth phone headset? You got it. Ceramic hair straightener thingy? It's yours. That Nintendo game you really, really wanted? Enjoy!
  
• I got a DVD I already own, a pack of two t-shirts (quite nice, but I don't really wear t-shirts)), a book (historical trivia, looks mildly diverting) and a nice teapot and cup set (nice, but I don't really drink tea). I appreciate them all, really I do, but note to self: send wishlist next year!
  
• I broke the journey home by stopping to see my good friend Robbie, and it was glorious. We had dinner and nummy nums wine at one of the few restaurants open on Boxing Day, but didn't have a late night as Robbie had to work the next day. I spent the day having a relaxing wander around the city and Chapel St (funky shops, cafes and small bars), getting inadvertantly sunburned. Then Robbie made dinner and we sat outside in the shade of his courtyard with Gin & Sodas with Lime, until it was time to head off to the airport.
  
• No hottie in the seat beside, but I did get 3 seats to myself. Score!
  
• I came home broke and relaxed. The broke part has lasted but the relaxed bit sort of went out the door when I discovered my flatmate had left me the gift of a sinkful of dirty, smelly dishes, a dishwaser with a pile of food in the bottom (likewise smelly), two empty toilet rolls sitting on the bathroom sink and the news that he is unable to move out by the deadline of Tuesday. Sometimes I hate my life. (OK, I know that sounds kind of trivial, but given that neither my flatmate or his frequently present boyfriend do any cleaning around the house, it was just the straw that made the camel's bloodpressure escalate. Plus the delayed moving out thing seriously screws things up.)

So not the best end to my little holiday, but the prevailing mood for my trip was fun. The hassles with my flatmate involved a brief white hot flare of anger, that has now largely subsided. Not enough really to dent the enjoyment of my time away. I'm now off until the 2nd of January, and after pottering around the house and doing some work on the garden today, I think tonight will be catching up with friends and maybe a movie.

And you? How was your break?