And here are some pics from our Christmas dinner

(see post of monday 6th)

In the middle of the preparations...

And here you can see how our kitchen does have the faculty of looking slightly more cheerful when for the first time in history it is filled with all twelve its occupants at the same time (not fitting onto one picture of course):

There's no use giving you a list of names, but the one taking the photo is R.; the elbow on the left is my loud-mouthed Spanish neighbour (who is actually living two doors away, but forementioned mouth has no problem creating the illusion); the red-striped arm belongs to the person that is from a place I actually know (Cardiff); the girl at the far end is very proud to be from Yorkshire; next to her is my neighbour B. (the one that went to Twelfth Night (like me!), the one that lived in France (like me!) and the one with the fine taste in music and movies (...). On my left is the sword-swallower (see 6 December).

Today, first some unrelated topics

Thank you people for the Christmas cards and e-messages you already sent. 'K krijg er zin in! And I apologise 'thoroughly' for not sending any cards myself this year...

Rebecca and I said goodbye to our last flatmate this morning, who was catching a plane from Bristol to Germany... tomorrow. That is, tonight, Rebecca saw our Lafrowda-ghost, who turned out to be Marianne, who turned out to have misread the date on her ticket. She looked terribly disappointed about not being in Germany by now...

Still, I myself feel pretty okay around here.

I very nearly finished my essay, still doubting on whether I should bring in Turner on liminality, OR decide not to exceed the word limit by more than 10% this time and just leave it at the adjective "liminal"...

In between, Rebecca and I visited the Royal Albert Memorial Museum volunteers' Christmas drink and lecture, on which we saw more mince pies, but also Swiss rolls (which, I learnt, are not Swiss at all), delicious Spanish orange juice reminding one of Italy (and Spain) and beautiful images and stories by our ethnography curator about the Maya! (Do I see a big smile behind an Apple?)

Also, I put some leftovers together for dinner which I think are actually worth remembering as a combination:
butter, spring onions, pear, unbeaten eggs, single cream, mozzarella, and thyme (fry in that order and scramble and serve with bread or whatever starch source. Nice mixture of sweet, sour and savoury).

A few days ago (must have been either Friday or Saturday) I posted some not altogether positive comments on the movie Narnia. A., my Exeter 'cinema buddy', sent me a Guardian article that I found well-researched, well-written, and well-thought, so I recommend it to those thinking about reading the books or seeing the movie (or maybe better read the article afterwards). Also nice for Tolkien fans ;-)