It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas And of course we had the classic "I thought we agreed not to buy anything for each other this Christmas" conversation the other night as she was putting my neatly wrapped presents under the tree whilst I sat on the couch slurping on a pint of water following another night out!

So there I was last night out on Michigan Avenue with the masses belatedly doing my Christmas shopping. I think in Coach the shop staff broke the world record for asking me "if they could help my find anything today." I gave up counting at 24.

We have decided to stay in Chicago this year for Christmas. I would have loved to have gone home because Christmas is all about family but timing, cost and the general haplessness of driving 100's of miles to spend far too short a time with family and friends before embarking on another Atlantic crossing a few days later was too much to bare.

I will go back in January for a longer and more leisurely period and will spend Christmas relaxing in front of my telly cooking and uncorking wine. This week has been busier than I expected, workwise, compounded by the fact I have to go to St Louis on Friday but I'm hoping to get everything to a point where I can take the whole of next week off, which will be quite lush.  ¶ 12:08