Merry Christmas

It doesn't feel very much like Christmas now that Shane Warne has retired from cricket. Its like being given a lump of coal in your stocking. Next thing you know, we'll lose our best pace bowler and wicket-keeper/batsman...

Christmas time again. I am now on annual leave for 6 weeks. I haven't had a break like that since I took a year off 2 and half years ago. I am astoundingly lucky. We are off to France to have a bit of a ski, and then to Belgium to catch up with some absolutely super friends.

2006 was a bit of a shitter of a year for me. Major personal disasters and then waking up one day in the burbs. This is nothing compared to the lives of some. I am astoundingly lucky. I will know by the end of the year if we have a farm in Margaret River. I would not have expected that to happen at the start of the year. Yet, it has, and we are now all excited about buying a tractor. Mortgages aside, there is really nothing to complain about. We cannot do all the things we had hoped to and dreamed of, but we have a good old crack at the others.

I like Christmas. I like celebrating the birth of a great man. Jesus had a good message: Love one another. 2006 years later, it rarely sounds like that same simple message. 2006 years is a long time to play chinese whispers.

One more thing. I miss my friends living overseas. Why is it we all only got to live in the same place for that amount of time? Have a great Christmas and we'll see you about.

I was going to put up a funny photo of us saying merry Christmas, but that would have been silly.

(Changed my mind. Merry Christmas!)

The Ashes

After feeling the pain of an Ashes defeat 15 months ago in England, McGrath said he had no sympathy for the opposition who had handed back the urn in just 15 days of cricket. "You don't feel too much for them," he said. "I remember standing on The Oval last year watching England celebrate when they won the Ashes. "I'm sure everyone else in Australia who met up with any England supporter since then has really copped it, so no, we don't feel sorry for them. Order has been restored."

Order has been restored. That is exactly what one of my companions said to me ysterday as we walked away from the WACA ground after having watched the Third Test of the Ashes. All is well.

I can't find the words to talk about Adam Gilchrist yet. The third day was a spectacular batting festival from various geniuses in the game of cricket; and from one Uber Genius, our Gilly. It was all too much for me at one stage that I needed to sit in the St John's cool room with the TV on. I ran out of there when Hussey was on 80. I wasn't going to miss his century. That was just the start of it.

I have some more pics and vid of the victory ball. They'll go up soon.