Be back soon

I'm off to Texas to visit my family tomorrow (Sunday), so this will (presumably) be my last post for a while. So let me start off by

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and great 2008!

The last few days have been busy for me. Thursday was our last day at school. I was in the school "pantomime": every year the staff put on a show for the students. The last few years we've done tv shows and this year was Strictly Come Dancing*. My partner twisted his ankle a day before the show but I had a wonderful substitute. Andrew and I danced the twist to "Twisting the Night away". The students didn't make us the winners (which was fine) but there were many many staff members that came up afterwards and complimented us ... saying that we were very good and even a few said we were the best. True or not - it does the ego good to hear :) Andrew and I had a lot of fun with our routine - it was dripping in cheese! Very high energy and full of childness and fun!
Thursday night was our staff Christmas party at a swanky hotel in central London. Andrew (a different Andrew), a friend from Nottingham, came down and joined us as well - that was a nice treat for me! It was a really good night. I continued on the dance floor, so my feet are now paying the price. After the Christmas party was over we headed to a night club where my coat vanished from. I'm really bummed! As I was dressed up quite swanky I wore my nice (and flipping expensive) long black coat. When we were leaving the night club my coat was nowhere to be found. Grr! I've tried calling the night club today, but have had no word back. I fear my lovely coat is gone forever. Looking at the silver lining, I'm thankful my phone / keys / wallet weren't in my coat! ...If anyone's struggling for a Christmas present idea for me - I'm in the need of a nice long black coat :-)
After the 4am bed time from Thursday night / Friday morning, Andrew and I decided to have a nice lie in this morning. Andrew was up and out of the flat in search of milk before I emerged from my bedroom. I was quite surprised he managed to get ready and leave without waking me: he's staying in my spare room and the walls are very thin. In my defense he only just left before I was up. Around 2 we headed into London to go to the British museum, but as it was so late (and we were both quite dead) we decided to go tomorrow. Instead we strolled up the north bank of the Thames and ended up going for a late lunch at a very nice burger place opposite St Paul's Cathedral. We of course had to stop by St Paul's. There was a service starting, so we stayed for a bit of that before heading for some coffee. I'm suffering from a nasty cold so I feel really rough and Andrew's stomach wasn't quite right so neither of us were up for a big night. Somehow when deciding what we could do we decided on going to see The Sound of Music in the West End. It was a brillant show: we were lucky enough to get front row tickets so were in the thick of the action. Very cool. I was ever so impressed with the quality of the sets - there were a lot of changes and they were all done very impressively.
Tomorrow I think we're headed to the British museum to see the part of China's Terracotta Army there and then we're off to a choral Renaissance performance by The Tallis Scholars. Sunday Andrew's heading back to Nottingham and I'm off to Texas for a fortnight.
And through all the hustle and bustle, I have a cold and feel pretty horrible! Woe is me.

Apologies for the lack of photos. I have quite a few, I just can't get them on the pc at the moment.

* US equivalent = Dancing with the Stars I believe