I've had my first Christmas card! And may I say, Carol's hand made cards are getting more elaborate every year. With the amount of work she seems to have put into this one, it's going to take the whole of 2007 to make next year's effort. I'm looking forward to it already. Oh, and anyone getting excited about the thought of a Christmas card from me this year, worry not - you won't have to contain yourself for much longer. I've been to Lidl this morning, so they should be in the post by Friday.

And talking of exciting things arriving in the post, my annual car insurance renewal has arrived today. Is it me, or do these people just pluck random figures out of the air when deciding what to charge you? When I left Shotley Gate in July and moved to the ghetto, AA Insurance informed me that they'd be putting up my premium from around £300 a year, to £568.36. Presumably because Patsy Palmer lives around the corner, and they expect her to ram me on a daily basis.

But as I say, my renewal documents have dropped through the letterbox today, carrying the news that for no apparent reason my premium for the next year has been lowered to £482.19. But that's not all. They've now found an alternative insurer who'll cover me for £421.67. Obviously I'm not complaining about the drop in price, but why the heck was I charged £568 in July, when I'm now insurable for £421? It's not like I've gone out and bought a garage.

Anyhoo, in other news, four days on from my slightly stiff e-mail, there's still no word from Blogger regarding my missing archives. And as if that wasn't enough, I've discovered that since switching to Blogger Beta, I seem to be unable to upload any photos. Carol's card above has had to be hosted on my own site. So a word of advice to anyone thinking of upgrading to the new version of Blogger:

Don't.