We have been posting on this blog for over a year now

and although in the big picture that is not a long time, I am pretty happy with the way that things are going. It gives me a chance to fire off random thoughts at the world and let out a little steam from time to time.
Tomorrow morning I will head into the office for a few hours and then head home to get right into the Christmas spirit. I won the bet and we will definitely be having another green Christmas, but there is no reason not to enjoy ourselves.
Reminds me of my mother asking at the end of Christmas lunch........ "who would like pudding?" To which we all responded "Me!" The next question was always "would you like custard, cream or ice cream?" which was always greeted with the only possible response..... "Yes please!"
Merry Christmas everyone and best wishes for 2009.

Although things looked promising last week, I would bet my lunch money

that we are now in for another green Christmas. The temperatures are considerably higher and with a couple of days of rain, things have just washed away :-( It will nevertheless be enjoyable and even if it is 5° we will still have good appetites for the food-fest.
Many thanks to the Mini Mooses for the blog post- we are very happy that your parcels arrived in time and hope that you all have a great Christmas in sunny Singapore. Loved the photos of Kai in his new football shirt and also of Miss Noodle's reindeer!
We have just finished a most enjoyable Sunday dinner with Enzo and Cornelia- a nice chance to catch up before Christmas. Enzo has been promoted to Director of the bank and spent a considerable amount of time celebrating that fact (and other things) on Friday afternoon. Hope that you arrived home safely and that the guest room is comfortable :-)
I have set my alarm for early in the morning and am planning on heading off to the gym for a spinning class. Not bothering to go into the office, so I hope to be able to achieve something worthwhile on my day off........

It has been a tiring week

and after last night's drinks I will be off to bed quite early this evening. We have some Australian visitors in town at the moment and Catherine spent the day in Luzern with them today- tomorrow they are off to Zermatt. I hope that the sky is clear and that the sun is shining down there as it would be a shame to travel so far and not get to see the Matterhorn.
I'm starting to get back into the Christmas spirit..... it will be nice to have this coming Monday to do some shopping and sort a few things out and then really cruise into the holiday long weekends. We will be catching up with friends and taking it pretty easy, but if the weather is nice we may even get the snowshoes out and go for a trip to the hills.
The Chief has invited us to an end of year party at the restaurant Okara tomorrow evening. Catherine won't be able to attend as she will be travelling so I guess that I will have to eat her share of the sushi as well :-) I really should take my camera along and try to get some pictures- will see how I feel about that idea in the morning.

It's not very often that I will say this

but I will be glad when the weekend is over and I can head back to the office. Christmas is rapidly approaching and I really couldn't care less. Just hoping that I can find some way to relax and enjoy the couple of long weekends that I have in front of me........

Not one of the great weeks of the modern era

after spending a couple of hours arguing with my laptop on Monday night and not managing to take any photos to get my project started, I was out last night and spent too much time drinking red wine in Urania and then eating sushi and drinking Carlsberg at The Chief's. Catherine then called me this morning to tell me that she had been made redundant from work and was packing her stuff and heading home........ this was certainly not a disaster and it will probably get her out of a bad situation, but it did come as a bit of a shock.
Apologies to all who were waiting to see some more of my photos during the 50/fifty challenge but after missing out on the first 3 days out of seven, the whole thing has really passed me by :-( Maybe next year.

The bike marathon yesterday was a lot of fun

and luckily I had a reliable partner so that I only had to ride 3 hours instead of the whole 6! That was just right for me and although I am a little stiff today, I think that I might get into the gym later to do a few exercises and then do a little shopping in town as well. Zürich is super-conservative and normally closed on Sunday (as far as shopping goes) but in the last few years they have introduced a couple of shopping Sundays in December to pump up the volume.
Things are getting busy as the end of the year approaches- out for drinks and dinner with different people, we have dinner guests next weekend and the following week visitors from Australia for a few nights. It is always nice to catch up with people, but we will certainly be looking forward to a couple of relaxing long weekends over Christmas and New Year.
My one week long 50/fifty photo challenge kicks off tomorrow and while it will be fun, it is also difficult at this time of year as the days are so short. If the worst comes to the worst and I have to shoot indoors and with flash for most of the week, I guess that it would be no great disaster.

Gosh, is it Wednesday already?

It has been a funny start to the week- it always takes me a day or two to get back into the swing of things after time off and this week was no exception. Hard to believe that December is already here and that we are very much on the countdown to Christmas and a couple of nice long weekends.
I am very much looking forward to a dinner out tomorrow night- the boss of our desk celebrated 30 years with the company on Monday and has invited a group of us out for the evening. It will certainly be a lot of fun, although Friday might get off to a slow start.
Had a quick beer with Pipo last night and a bite of sushi at the Chief's. As per usual, the food was great, the beer was most enjoyable and the "sushi mafia" were in good form. The real pity was that we had wasted 25 minutes walking around in the Christmas Market in the main railway station here in Zürich beforehand. The time would have been much better invested sitting at the sushi bar.
Stupidly opened a thread at Nikoncafe this evening and saw that someone is trying to fire up a photo challenge- 50th week/50mm lens which was a lot of fun last year and I really should get involved in again.

Luckily there were no complaints about the polenta

on Thursday evening and I believe that the ragout and the mushrooms were quite well received. I certainly enjoyed my evening and it was nice not to have to jump out of bed early in the morning and dash off to the office. Things have been moving steadily since then- I have made some friends at apple.com and kitted myself and my darling child bride out with iPods and I am now in the process of ripping our CD collection so that I can load it onto our new toys.
I am hoping to get to the gym tomorrow lunchtime to do another spinning class as it is only a week until the 6-hour spinning marathon and a little more training definitely won't hurt. Luckily I was clever enough to grab a partner for the afternoon and Jasmin is still not aware that she will be riding 315 minutes while I cruise through 45 :-)
Monday is the start of the new working week (for me too!) and it will be difficult with the start of the new month and Christmas looming. We will all need to keep our heads down and see what we can salvage from the rest of the year.......

I am enjoying my week off

and although I haven't achieved loads, I feel that it has been a pretty successful break thus far. I have been able to catch up with some friends, haven't taken as many pictures as I might have liked but I have cooked a great beef ragout for our guests to eat with polenta tomorrow night.
Hoping to get to the gym again tomorrow and finish off the shopping for dinner while I am in town- we will have guests arriving from 18:30 so I will need to get home, put the music on loud, finish the cooking and tidy the place up. It should be good fun- the best news is that I won't have to dash off to the office early on Friday and depending on how I feel during the day I might even go to the big whisky tasting on the boats here in Zürich on Friday evening.
The fire that the Americans have tried to light under their stockmarkets seems to be still smouldering, but it is sadly perverse to see stocks like Citigroup up close to 100% in a couple of days and still trading at under $8. Not sure where this is all going but some of the ex-big brass from UBS have put their hands in their pockets and returned some of their ill-gotten from the last few years......... when the bank is writing off grillions and the stock price is in the basement 20-30 million coming back from these guys doesn't make a big difference, however they might feel that they are less likely to be attacked with rotting fruit and eggs when next they show their faces in public.
Lugano was great yesterday- thanks for your time Stefano, I really enjoyed those couple of bottles of wine!
P.S. have I told you lately how good Nick Cave really is? Just go and buy "Dig, Lazarus, Dig" and treat yourselves :-)

Thanks to Enzo and Cornelia for a great evening

we really enjoyed helping to drink the 5 Litre bottle of Austrian red wine and the food and company were terrific as well. Even though one would hope to have a good night's sleep after that, I still couldn't manage it and was up in the middle of the night again..... hopefully tonight will be another story.
I was in the gym again today and am starting to get back into the training routine- it is certainly one of the things that I plan to do this week along with a quick visit to Lugano and taking some photos. Yesterday I even took the radical step of reserving a bike for the upcoming 6-hour spinning marathon at our gym- at least I will have some help and the motivation provided by that sort of group is fantastic.
Walter and Masi are arriving shortly to have dinner with us- a nice, relaxed Sunday evening and a good start to my week off. It looks as if it will stay cool this week but hopefully we won't have any more snow and I can get out with my camera without being concerned about falling over and smashing everything into a bunch of small pieces.

At least when it is raining, no one can be 100% sure

whether you are crying or not. A very sad day in Wagga Wagga on Thursday and I am disappointed that I can't be there to pay my last respects in person. I am sure that I will wake at some odd time during the night and wonder why.......

On a happier note, we are trying to organise Christmas gifts for nieces, nephews, friends and family and it is quite a challenge this year. As the children grow older it is more and more difficult to think of something fun (especially when you are as old as me) and I only hope that they are happy on Christmas Day. At least Angus can be happy in the knowledge that I have a new hoodie!

I managed another visit to the gym today

and after having a very quiet month on that front, I can feel the effects already. A couple of bike sessions and some strength training and my legs are stiff but I know that this will pass soon enough and I can get back into the routine. Looking forward to a week off in another week's time- it will be spent around home, but will be enjoyable nonetheless. A chance to take some photos, visit the gym on a regular basis and entertain some friends at home.
We are off to a party this evening, which is always fun but it is a little sad because it is Patricia's leaving party before she heads off to Taiwan. Patricia, who is our favourite of the "sushi mafia" is always very good to us so she will be missed, but the other young ladies are great as well so we will get by.
Catherine has spent the afternoon in the office today- she has come catching up to do but at least it hasn't been a habit of late. I am going soon to meet her and head off to the party- taking my camera along and I hope to get some worthwhile shots.
Looking forward to a relaxing day tomorrow- with luck a visit to the gym again, some domestic duties and a quiet dinner at home to prepare us for the coming week.

R.I.P. Brett

The run of bad news continues-I had a telephone call from my brother in Sydney yesterday morning to tell me that a good friend from school and golfing mate had passed away. We are all left here wondering why this had to happen and I can only hope that the fairways are narrow, the greens really fast but fair and that the caddies know the course well wherever he is teeing it up now. You won't be forgotten Brett- it will be a little while before I get to see the rest of the guys again but we will certainly raise a glass in your honour and toast your name on the boards at the golf club when I do.
I'm just about to go downstairs put on a Smiths album and pour myself a glass of something old and enjoyable.

Does anyone have some good news to share?

Apart from the US Election results last week, things only seem to be bleak and miserable in the world. With the Central Banks in Europe slashing rates this week and the US Economy burning jobs, we are not in for a very Merry Christmas. I'm not sure how this recession will turn out, but my guess is that it will still get quite a bit worse before we hit the bottom- and with the banking and financial sector having taken such a hit, the rate relief passed on by the Central Banks is not making it's way to Main Street. If you are a banker........ get out there and lend!!
I had a couple of busy days in London- and in case you were wondering, the weather was appalling! It was grey and miserable for all of the time that I was there- combined with the very short days, it didn't make for a lot of fun.
Back in sunny Zürich- I hope to get out and take some more photos around town today and get myself organised and ready for the new week.
Be smarter than the rest!

The change that we had to have

and after 8 years of the Bush Disaster it will be great to see a new face in the White House. As far as the next few months are concerned, I don't know if it matters too much who won the election because things are very tough and will likely get worse but as far as vision goes, Obama can hopefully get the USA (and the rest of the world by default) back on the rails.
Just checking in briefly this morning as I need to dash to the office- but I did want to say that I am pleased with the election results. More to follow later in the week when I return from London.

Happy Birthday Gazza

Hi Mate,
hope that you have a great day- we will endeavour to call you either later tonight (our time) or first thing in the morning. I would love to be there and be able to celebrate with you, but sadly that is not the case. Love to you and the children and we will catch up again soon enough.

best wishes for a very Happy Birthday,

David and Catherine

A couple of days until US Election Day

and perhaps the last chance to save the rest of the world. I'm calling on all the Americans out there to do the right thing and vote for change!! I would shudder to think of what might happen to the USA and the rest of the world should McSame and Palin get the jobs this coming Tuesday.
Our weekend has been far too short (nothing new there..) but I have managed to get my Oktoberfest photo challenge finished, we had an enjoyable dinner with some friends of Catherine's last night and today has been very relaxed and I have not even left the building yet! With a little luck, I will be able to spend more time in the gym in the next couple of months- doing the photo project was lots of fun but also very time-consuming and with my only chance to shoot photos by daylight being when I first leave the office in the evening my visits to the gym have been few and far between :-(