TPR caused chaos when he declared that we would host our Christmas party on Friday rather than Saturday due to the weather forecast. The last minute change meant that some people now couldn’t make the celebration, and there was a risk that others would still turn up on the original date due to the short notice with which TPR communicated the change of plan. Added to this, TPR had evidently forgotten that we had our own plans for the Friday night already: dinner at a pub in the Pentlands with RG-J, SG, LE and GE, followed by a trip to the Lyceum Theatre in town.

On the Friday itself, people did turn up, but not in the usual numbers. By about 9pm the few who were there were mainly old friends from our Birmingham days. Rather than dancing, they lay around the flat reading the papers. I tried to engage JS and a couple of friends from school (the T twins) in a game of Settlers of Catan, but this proved very difficult when all the counters were fashioned from large blocks of dark and white chocolate.