December diary

A Christmas market photo-shoot took us to Stow-on-the-Wold, with Maxx along for the dining room at The Grapes hotel, sadly no longer the treat it used to be. David & Tine Landy came for lunch on their way to their new home in Denmark on the 2nd, the same day we held the annual Nicholas Battye memorial dinner.

Another week back in Denmark. After years of reliable service Airport Express dropped me as a customer by making me miss my flight and then declining to talk about it. New management, one supposes. To those to whom I have recommended them warmly in the past: avoid, avoid, avoid.

The London I. P. Sharp Associates Christmas party convened at the Plumbers Arms in Victoria as usual, twenty years after the company disappeared into Reuters. Otherwise a quiet Christmas, enlivened by a visit from Gil Athoraya and Simonetta Pischeddi, couch-surfing from Sardinia.