And now the week that was...

‘But first this from the recent issues desk: On December 10th Tim Babbage, brother of the blogger, graduated with his Masters of Business Administration. This worthy effort was marked by an immediate family event with his parents travelling to New Zealand for the occasion, which happened to fall on his father's birthday. His younger brother, Duncan, said: “This achievement reflects Tim's sharp mind and keen sense for business, something he must have found outside the immediate family...” Tim Babbage was unaffordable for comment. Now back to your regular scheduled broadcast...’

The last week before Christmas week is no doubt uniformly a busy one, and ours has been no exception. Monday night started with Bronwyn overseeing a Christmas concert at her school. The concert reflected her diverse passions, or perhaps her passion for diversity. Other teachers were surprised at some of the students Bronwyn managed to get involved this year in things like the choir and junior and senior ensembles. Similarly, the music ranged from self-composed piece in a three-man group with driving guitars, to the student pictured here who left the audience stunned with her accomplished rendition of part of The Messiah. (This same senior student had previously impressed with an awesome hiphop number at the school talent quest, and had selected The Messiah herself.) Bronwyn had been anxious about how the concert would go. Instead, many attendees and other teachers told her it was “the best in years", encouraging her a lot. We've really noticed here in London that other teachers actually comment on and complement the work Bronwyn is doing.

Tuesday night saw our final homegroup evening for the year, sharing Christmas mince pies and mulled wine, more things that make much more sense when it is actually cold at Christmas time. Shown here with Bronwyn is Cory and Misha (who are passing through, from Canada originally), Fiona, our leaders Carolyn and Chris, me, Sarah and Dave. Missing this evening were both our Annes. While it is sometimes tough for Bronwyn in particular to get there on a Tuesday night, due to needing to prepare classes each evening, we've found this group a good support, encouragement, and a place where we've learned more about God. Thanks guys!

Determined not to spend a night in if we could possibly avoid it, Bronwyn spent Wednesday night at her school leaving do, after the term finished for the (calendar) year at midday. Not to be outdone, I went out with workmates to mark the departure of three members of our physiotherapy team. As there was no school in the morning we were both to bed pretty late, though admittedly the physios demonstrated more stamina than the teachers and unfortunately I still had to go to work in the morning! But hey, you're only young once, right?

Ahh, so Thursday, surely you spent Thursday at home then? Not likely. Meeting at the train station straight from work (Bronwyn having returned to school like a well trained puppy to do extra work...) we headed across town to meet up with recent arrivals Liz and Brett from Palmy in New Zealand. They were staying with Megan and Brent, also of Palmy fame. It was nice to have dinner with them all and hear some stories. Liz and Brett will be joining us this coming week for Christmas Day at our place, once we figure out how to get them here. We don't own a car, and there isn't any public transport running... We're in the process of organising to borrow one which hopefully will solve this problem.

Somehow this entry has turned into an epic of boring proportions. Let me therefore pull a curtain over Friday, commenting only that Nick and Hayley our housemates went out, so we stayed in and had the place to ourselves.

Saturday I awoke to discover I was not in good form, absence-of-flu-wise. It was also raining hard outside which was a bit discouraging as we had tickets to see the New Zealand Barbarians play the England XV at Twickenham on Saturday night. I cancelled other plans and stayed in bed until mid-afternoon, at which point we began our travels out to the ground. Our tickets were at reasonable elevation in the stands, just off half-way, and we had heard about the swirling winds that slice off the Thames there. Now, even when hiking at reasonable altitude in cold weather in New Zealand I've never worn two layers of polypropylene before. Yesterday, however, we both wore two layers of polypro top and bottom, to which I added a further thermal top and three layers of merino wool underneath my coat. I'm pleased to say this resulted in a adequate degree of warmth in which to enjoy the game. (Dave on the other hand, the husband of a colleague who is pictured here, was no doubt warmed by fulfilling a 50-year wish to attend a game at Twickenham when his wife snatched up our spare ticket as a Christmas present for him after our friend Sonja was unable to come.) Unfortunately, while we were warm the Barbarians clearly did not have my foresight and it must have been due to the cold that they failed to make a swipe for the cup when it was paraded at the end. The game itself was enjoyable even if the final score of 42-17 didn't swing in the hoped-for direction.

While we're used to large numbers of people now, the travel home was something else. The sell-out crowd of 75,000 streamed out of the stadium, filling the streets. It was like herding cattle, with the cowboys (and girls) being mounted police on fairly twitchy-looking horses. With the queue for London-bound commuters extending back half a mile from the railway platforms, we were glad to be able to catch a loop train in the other direction that ended up back in Wimbledon. “Home sweet home” we said as the train finally pulled into the platform, and as I staggered home in my flu-induced state I reflected that had become true...

There. So now you have all our news, there's no excuse not to write.   : )