Christmas is now over, and I'm back at work. The kids go back to school in about a week's time.

The day itself was OK. We did very little either on Christmas Day or Boxing Day. Watched TV, played with the children's new games, generally had fun. On the 27th we went out for a walk - did a couple of miles across some frosty ground which was very refreshing and great fun until Jessica stuck her foot through the ice in a puddle and got wet - and then complained all the way back that she was uncomfortable and that she hated the walk.

Sunday was even more fun when we went to IKEA. Bought a new table, although typically they didn't have any of the chairs we wanted in stock, and we'll therefore have to go back at some point. This seems to be typical at the moment. Whenever we've gone there they never have what we want in stock. Or at least only some of it (which is even more frustrating).

Anyway, back at work and preparing for a bunch load of project work that I'm going to have to do in the New Year. Quite looking forward to it in some ways, although I've sold myself as being really good at projects, so there will be a lot of pressure on me to 'perform'.

I also have an interview for an accelerated development programme in the New Year, which I'm hoping to tie in with a visit to the Byzantium exhibition at the Royal Academy. Should be interesting.

Deb is going for a MRI scan shortly, but I'll say no more about that until there's a bit more to tell. She's a little unnerved though.

That's all for now. I've had a bit of a saga trying to get pictures of Jessica in the school play onto the blog, but I'll have another go over the weekend.

Sitting in work on the last day before the Christmas break. I'm struggling to keep myself motivated to do all the project documentation and planning work that I'm supposed to be doing. It's very quiet here and I'm trying hard not to count the minutes.

I'm in work throughout except for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day - although I do have a couple of days off planned for after the New Year.

I always find this time of year depressing. Everything plods slowly on and by the time the big day arrives you're pretty much tearing your hair out.

We haven't decided what to do with the kids presents as yet. There was a plan at one stage to unexpectedly drop them on the solstice, but we didn't go for it. The problem is that Jessica gets over excited. She basically doesn't sleep on Christmas Eve at all. I think last year she was up at 4am, but under strict orders not to wake anyone else until 6am, but of course you can hear her moving around etc.. And then she's as grumpy as hell for the rest of the day. It really takes the shine off to be honest. So we haven't ruled out giving them presents on Christmas Eve as a surprise. I'm not sure how things will go.

We've tried again not to do presents for the grown ups. Deb has made an agreement with her family that they only buy presents for the kids. It's easier for her because both her brother and sister have children. I find this really awkward with my family. I'm trying to convert to doing Oxfam Unwrapped, which is something I really like the idea of, but I don't seem able to get it right.

Back to writing my business case. Then the milestones. Then the recruitment schedule. Then the workflow plan. Yippee for Christmas.

Visit by the parents the weekend before last. Seemed to go fairly well. Mind you, the kids did their usual in Toys 'R' Us. Mum wanted to take them out and buy them something. But of course, the children couldn't make it that easy! Enter big rows about what they were or weren't allowed to choose - made worse by Jessica choosing something that we had already bought for her for Christmas (which I then had to own up to to avoid serious meltdown).

Anyway, a nice tea in a pub down the road and they went home on the Sunday. It went OK.

Last weekend we went to visit Deb's sister Claire, stopping to return to Ironbridge on the way and staying one night in a hotel to break the journey.

Ironbridge was OK, although the kids didn't enjoy it as much as they did first time around. Jessica had a face on her all the way around. Even Enguinity which was always going to be the favourite didn't seem to enthuse them as much as it had done.

The hotel (a Premier Inn) was fabulous. We've not done hotels in a while because of the strain of all sleeping in one room. But they had given us a large 'L' shaped room and it went really well.

Claire has just had her second baby. He was very contented, and newborn. I almost said cute, but I'm not sure that any newborn is really cute as such.

The long and short of it is that we're now all really tired. The last week in the run down to the end of school before Christmas is going to be really hard, just to keep the feet moving.

The good news is that I've worked out how to get BBC iPlayer programmes onto my Palm TX so that I can watch them on the bus. But that'll have to wait for another day.

The latest spider in Liverpool, at Exchange Flags.

Brief trip to Sheffield today for a written test to accompany my application for an accelerated development programme. This is something that would facilitate a number of postings over 3 years with the aim of getting promotion. I filled in the form at the last minute a few weeks ago, and everyone who applies has to undergo this test.

If I'd known the type of test involved, I probably wouldn't have bothered. It was one of those psychometric things - here's a sequence of 5 pictures, choose the next one in the sequence.

I am spectacularly awful at these tests. It's been sometime since I took one, and I just can't seem to get the hang of them. Needless to say, today's test went just as badly. I am not therefore expecting great things from this application. Results expected in the week before Christmas. Yippee.

Not too impressed with Sheffield as a town either. Much of it was very run down, but with some small pockets which had been regenerated. I'll post a picture of the art just outside the train station later. It was a great sight just after getting off the train. But as soon as you went past it there were a number of derelict buildings. So a mixed bag really.

I've just added Webcalendar to my server at home, so that I can share my diary across the home network. Installed from FreeBSD ports on the 6.3-RELEASE system it works without problem. I combine this with jpilot I can export the calendar from my Palm TX to iCal format and then upload it to Webcalendar. I'm not sure Deb was impressed when I set up her side of the PC to view my calendar (she asked if I was looking for a secretary!) but I'm working on it.

(typed from the train on the way home from Sheffield).

Walking near Willington. One of our favourite short circular walks.

Yo Sushi has now arrived in Liverpool, and is one of our favourite restaurants - it's already overtaking Wagamama (!). Here's a snap of the food going past.

On top of Moel Famau

This was posted by mobile from my mobile 'phone. It shows me and Jessica on top of Moel Famau in North Wales, proving that the superlambanana was really there at the top.

The main point was to test that I could send a picture by email from my mobile 'phone (a Samsung E250).

For anyone else failing to do this and getting this message:

Technical details of permanent failure:
Your mail message format is invalid; please try again.

the trick was to add a message body (blank, or just a subject line was not enough). And then it went through without problem.

Look forward to lots more pictures here!

On leave for half term, and finding things a bit grim at the moment. Something about the clocks going back which leaves me feeling low. It's happened every year for the last few years now, and seems to be something I've picked up from Deb, who feels the same.

Still, we managed to make it up to Dinas Bran yesterday. Just outside Llangollen, this is a castle on a very steep hill. The weather alternated between bright sunshine and showers. We managed to get caught in a couple of showers, and Alex slipped over in a field and got covered in mud. Typical Harrison day out really.

It was Thomas the Tank Engine weekend, and Alex enjoyed seeing the steam trains. We even managed to avoid actually going on them, which was a first. Although I don't think Alex was particularly happy about that.

Now this is something I have to go and see: http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/byzantium/

Not quite sure how I'm going to manage it, seeing as it's in London and I'm not, but I would love to see it even so.