The things we do!

As I write this, Chris is in Carleton University's Senior Common Room, talking to a historian about the Sassanians or Sassanids, as some call them, of ancient Persia. Chris was set up for this by means of a chance encounter at a dinner party at Vija's house, where the other guests were four academics and the conversation over supper so stimulating that none of us thought we'd ever get any sleep that night. We drove home in precarious conditions too, at a crawl because of freezing rain on the highway, passing two ambulances that had crashed into the central barrier. Actually Chris and I did eventually sleep like logs.

I ought not to be blogging; I ought to be working on my Christmas Letter which sums up everything we and the rest of the family have done this year. However small I make the font, I can't seem to make it fit onto two short pages.

Gilgamesh fighting Enkidu

The other things I should be getting on with are a short social history of the Rockcliffe Flying Club (notes for a journalist who wants to write about it in the next edition of Wings magazine; the RFC is 50 years old next year) and the epic story of Gilgamesh which I'm adapting and illustrating—now there's a challenge!—for a four-year-old to read. I've got to go out for a hair cut in half an hour, in the torrential rain, and spring clean the house in preparation for our departure for China, whenever that might happen to be).

Chris is taking a three-day break from work to recharge his batteries which is how he has time for his Sassanian lunch-chat. This weekend we have four Christmas Parties to go to. We were invited to a fifth but decided to turn it down.