It's the Human League! And it's only a week late. But hey, at least I took a photo this year, which is more than I did twelve months ago. Lisa did give me a camera last Christmas (whereas I gave her my heart, obviously), but unfortunately we saw the Human League on December 13th, which was clearly no good. I'd only had the camera a month and hadn't worked out how to use it yet.

Anyhoo, I may not have been around much (well, at all) lately, but it's ok - Brian Harvey hasn't tracked me down. Although I did come across a random stranger yesterday making the kind of comment I'm sure everyone can identify with. Well, the first part of it anyway. I'm also sorry to have missed Dave's one-year blog anniversary, Donna's tonsillitis, and Carol saying that I write like a girl. Which is obviously something I refute. Although when I told Lisa of the outrageous accusation last night, she responded with a simple "Well, you do". So that's the last time I ask for her support in a libel case.

As for the past week, well it's been a heady mix of exhaustion, stress, and Christmas shopping. Having been tempted on a daily basis by the Marks & Spencer advert for the turkey breast joint wrapped in parma ham and stuffed with... um... stuffing, Lisa and I got the bus into Brighton town centre on Monday morning with the sole aim of buying about half a dozen of the things and seeing how fat we can get before the new year. Unfortunately it turns out that they cost twenty quid each - something the advert conveniently fails to mention. So we headed for HMV instead and bought the 'Now That's What I Call Music Quiz' DVD. It was three pounds cheaper, considerably less fattening, and likely to last more than a day.

We also came up with the entertaining idea that whoever lost the first game had to pay for the DVD. Something we were both happy to agree to, as Lisa knows a lot about pop music, and I was still on a confidence high after winning the BBC's Test the Nation Quiz the night before (54 out of 70 - borderline genius - I don't know how I do it). We opted for the 'Top Twenty' game, where you have to get a certain number of questions correct in a row, otherwise you go back to the start. Which looked like a bad decision when Lisa was still on square one after two hours, but after only another four or five hours of intensive play, and with the time approaching 11pm, a winner finally emerged.

I had no idea I knew so much about Girls Aloud. Lisa was gutted. Though I had to agree that "Which member of the Spice Girls likes Sugar Puffs?" is not really a music question.

Anyhoo, I've been back in Suffolk for 48 hours, which is just long enough to unpack two weeks worth of stuff and then pack it all up again for a trip to Chelmsford. My sister is flying in this morning from Chicago. Which makes very little sense as she lives in Dallas. I can only assume she was looking for Mexico. But whatever the reason, we're reuniting at my parents' house for a few days of fighting over the computer and eating cake. We're also holding a birthday tea for my Mum, a mere six days after her actual birthday. Fortunately she's already had my present though - I gave her my cat for the month of December.

So I'd better go. I still need to copy my entire CD collection onto the MP3 Player Lisa's given me for Christmas. Not that I've opened it yet, obviously. Well, only the wrapping paper and packaging. But hey, she's been wearing my gift since November, so she can't complain. And besides, her coat may be more stylish, more waterproof, and eminently more practical, but my MP3 Player has a chance of still fitting me in the new year...