Jingle Bells

Hi again all. Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat etc. Things are gathering pace as the annual shopping frenzy kicked in at the weekend. Tried to drive to the local town (Banbury) for a spot of essential item purchasing and couldn't get near the place as there was traffic gridlock. Waited for a while and then did a U turn and put plan B into action - you guessed it - pint of Guinness at the pub.

I've been busy house hunting still - decided to rent rather than buy so have looked at a few places with little or no luck. One place I'd always liked when visiting this part of the world was empty but I found it was uninhabitable since the roof leaked really badly. That was a pity as it was a really quaint old gatehouse, probably a few hundred years old. I remember people living in there years ago and always thought that one day I could live there. I found another place in Chipping Warden, not ideal but that was the only thing available. Not much comes up for rent here so I applied for it. No answer after 8 days now so I'm guessing I was unsuccessful.

However a stroke of luck. Bumped into someone who was a family friend - was a kid when we first met - he said he had a small single storey place for rent so we went round and had a look - its ok so I move into Chacombe village in a couple of weeks. Its about 3 miles from Mum and will be great when Pete and Chris arrive around Christmas. Needs a bit of tidying up but will serve the purpose. The village is typical of the area, old cottages and narrow streets. Will take some pictures ready for next post

I've been listening to the cricket each night via the internet. Good to see the Poms actually playing cricket at last in the second test even though day 4 was like watching paint dry. Would have been good to see them win this one but a combination of Shane Warne and England's suicidal tendancies handed a win to Oz. Now can a team that declares in their first innings with 500 and something runs and wickets in hand lose by 6 wickets? England seems to discover new ways of giving games away. Never mind, my team won.

Well loved ones, will write again soon.

Paul the Aussie xx