No presents for you, then...!

Hi Holly,

I hope you had a good Christmas and birthday - the present I sent you (by registered post so that I could be sure you'd get it) was returned undelivered, so I guess someone in your household is still determined to make sure that I have no part in your life... They could have just signed for it, couldn't they..... Well, your life won't be so full without a moo-ing clock on your wall and I hope they can live with themselves for denying you the right to have one...

We all had a nice time and there were 10 of us at home on Christmas Day, with all your Aunt Diane's family and my Mum over. I cooked for us all and we had a really nice day - shame you weren't with us though..

Anyway, soon after Christmas I went to Italy on the St Christopher's skiing trip. We took a party of 30 children to the delightfully named Prato Nevoso in Italy, where we had a week of sunshine and just about enough snow to last the week. The only problem was that there were lots of Italians still on holiday, so the resort was quite full and as a result the lifts were very crowded. What fun we had trying to keep 30 kids together in a queue of 3-400 people, all waiting to get on a 2 man chairlift... My friend, Mike and I are going to Austria next month for what I am sure will be a much more relaxed week's skiing.

Talking of being in the freezing cold, it's been snowing here this week and temperatures have dropped to below zero - an impeccable time for our boiler at home to die... we've had no heating for 5 days and we're all starting to freeze up! The plumber starts work today installing a new boiler and heating system, but it'll be another week before it's all done. And the forecast is... more snow! Why can't these things ever happen in summer??

Work has been very busy this year, but we have settled into our new office, and I really like it here. I've got someone coming in to see me in 5 minutes, so I'm afraid I'll have to cut this short...
I hope you are well and that all is going well at school... I hope lots of other things as well...

Love you, Holly...
Dad x