Belatedly, a very happy Christmas and all the very best for 2020. We'll probably need all of that and then some... Another full year has ended; actually, it's a decade that's ended. To plagiarise a phrase "Woosh'. 'What was that?' That was your life mate'" .

2019 began in Cornwall watching the fireworks at St. Ives in Cornwall - a town that I love for more reasons than I can begin to explain and one that we visited once again in sunny July. 2019 ended in Cornwall too...watching the fireworks in St. Ives. Pictures to follow. In January I went to Finland to see some dear friends. Finland and January are two words that should be seldom used in the same sentence. In this case doubly so...it was -21 degrees C as I stood on the dark railway station platform waiting for the rumbling monster to come out of the dark night to take me back to Helsinki. Bracing does not do it justice. Still, it was wonderful to see some dear friends again and, as I'm clearly going senile, it will come as no surprise to hear that I am off there again in a couple of days.

Some trips to Copenhagen to see friends and listen to lots of interesting music, long weekends in London, including a visit to Remainiacs Live (all that hard work didn't turn out so well!), a delightful visit to the majestic laburnum arch at Bodmin Gardens and a job offer from China that, stupid old man that I've become, seemed oh-so-tempting. In the end, after some heart searching, it had to be a 'no thanks' to that.

As indeed it was a 'no thanks' to the EU from the fine people of the UK following the Tory victory in the GE. My dad might have been proud, I think. Although I suspect even he would have drawn the line somewhere above Johnson, Raab and Patel. Me? Still think it is the biggest national act of self harm we could have scraped out of the political barrel but then that's one reason that I'm not a politician.

I'll report on the frozen feet and frostbitten fingers next week.