Well, it’s taken some time but I’ve finally gotten around to editing the pictures I took at New Years, which we spent with Aude’s family and friends in the south of France.

Matt & Aude

Aude & (the sadly now missing) Minouche)

The boys

Aude’s parents

And I can now say that I’ve eaten capon. Guess what — it tastes just like chicken!

I finally moved the car into my new garage today, which is just as well. I washed it and have now tucked it up for the winter.

In protest at the British climate, the car has developed a leak (actually, a number of leaks — like from every opening and through the roof) which means that leaving it outside in the rain simply isn’t an option. The Corvette wasn’t watertight when it was new, and 40 years haven’t made it any better.

One small problem. European garages are made for European cars. Which means that they’re tiny. This one is a little bigger than the first one I looked at (where I couldn’t even open the door) but it’s still tricky to get it parked, then to squeeze out.

It’s a tight squeeze!

Now that the car’s indoors, it’ll have a good chance to dry out. Provided the weather stays nice, my task next weekend is to clean out the entire inside of the car with Lysol or something similar to prevent mold & mildew from growing. Not exactly my idea of a fun weekend.

The car will be off the road for the next few months — I’ll wait until spring to wash it, wax it, service it, and have it inspected. But I will visit it from time to time between now and then — just to say “hello”.

There’s always been little doubt that exercise is good for you, though the jury’s out on the safety of supplementing your diet with creatine. While researching the safety of supplementing an exercise regime with creatine, I discovered this article. Not only can creatine improve your strength gains over time, but apparently it can make you smarter as well:

The dietary supplement creatine – known to improve athletic performance – can also boost memory and intelligence, researchers claim.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3145223.stm

It’s all very interesting stuff. But I think this proves less about creatine’s ability to make you smart than it does about vegetarians being inherently dim.

I’m pleased to see that the BBC has maintained it’s high journalistic standards, ensuring the article remains accessible to everyone, even the dim vegetarians. Rather than use a tricky word like ‘placebo’, which would frankly leave the vegetarians baffled for weeks, they described their experiments like this:

The volunteers were split up and given either creatine or a “dummy” pill for periods of six weeks.

Well, it’s 12th Night. I thought I’d take a photo of the tree before I put all the decorations away…

Hurrah! After only six months on the waiting list, Canterbury Council finally called me to tell me that they’ve found a garage for me. My poor little Corvette no longer needs to sleep outside in the cold. It’ll move indoors on Monday, as soon as I pick up the keys.

I’m back from France, and it feels like Christmas is finally over. The tree is down, the leftovers are gone, and the diet has begun. (Yes, Mother, I can hear you saying “I told you so.” I knew it would happen eventually. For the first time in my life, I’ve actually had to go on a diet, as the holiday season and too few visits to the gym has created a bit of a spare tyre).

I think it’s time to book my Easter holiday. I’ll go crazy if I’ve got nothing to look forward to. We’re thinking of two weeks in Thailand, with a quick stop in Hong Kong on the way.