7 Quick Takes: 27th December 2013

1. We have had a relaxed family Christmas. Tevye, Helen and myself don't go back to work until January so we are getting a long break and have quite a bit of fun stuff still to come. We have Tevye's family coming to visit on Sunday, social things planned for New Year's Eve and New Year, and Helen and I are planning to go to see the Hobbit on Monday.

2. We had a slight technical hitch with the Christmas Dinner. Tevye read the weight per kg of the turkey instead of the actual weight. Dinner was a little late!

3. I bought a Playmobil school for Rose for Christmas for a bargain price. I thought the Playmobil castle was long-winded to assemble. The school is worse. I think it took me about an hour and a half on Christmas morning!

4. Tevye's Christmas gift highlight was a T shirt with the slogan "I don't need Google, my wife knows everything". He finds this highly amusing!

5. I bit the bullet and joined a gym last week. A-Next-Door works there as a receptionist and was able to get me a "Friends and Family" discount. The gym closed for two weeks for a refurb the next day and the price will go up from January so I decided to jump in while I could still get cheap membership. Meanwhile I can use a sister gym a couple of miles away - this one is also being refurbished, but has a swimming pool and spa which is still open.

6. As you can probably guess from number four, getting more exercise is going to be one of my New Year's resolutions. I am not sure what the rest will be, but think they will need to involve both decluttering and prayer.

7. The final stages of the reshuffle at work have played themselves out over the past ten days and almost everyone now knows whether or not they get to stay and in what role. The senior posts did not go as most of us would have expected, but on the whole I think things are going to work out and it could have turned out a lot worse. Some unexpected positive things have also come out of the whole muddle.