I’ll try and write a more detailed round-up of the year before it ends, but I’ve got a flight to catch to the UK in a couple of hours and so this will have to be brief.

It’s simply to say thanks : to all who came to visit this year, to those of you who looked after Mimi while we were away, and to all of those who sent messages of support or told me how much they’d enjoyed The Venetian Game (*)

Thank you. It really does mean a lot.

“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,’ returned the nephew. ‘Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!” 
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Merry Christmas everyone!

(* and in the event that you didn’t enjoy The Venetian Game, well, thank you even more for not telling me…)