Hanging out at Christmas

When you work in a bottle shop, it is inevitable that your Christmas 'do' will involve booze, kicking off at The Durham Castle Arms.

Next stop was the BentSpoke brewing and canning facility at Mitchell, where Richard Watkins and Tracey Margrain showed us around their shiny bling factory while we drank a couple of cans.

Richard pouring out crankshaft fresh from the tank

A view from the bridge

We continued to dinner at The Old Canberra Inn

  

For Him Outdoors' real birthday, he went out with some friends. I met them after work and it looked like they had been having a good time.

Friends celebrating Him Outdoors' birthday

Despite a massive hailstorm (with hailstones so large they cracked my windscreen as I drove home from work), the weather cleared to be bright and beautiful on Christmas Day.

We were very kindly invited round to friends' for Christmas dinner.

Dinner with The Luminosity and family

This is the Big Tiger fighting the Fire Dragon, apparently

Christmas Day visitors

Back at home in the evening we bothered the cat and read our Christmas books.

Birthday drinks

One of the perks of my job is that I get to try some incredibly good whiskies, like this 25-year-old Laphroaig, for example.

I also really enjoyed this sweet mead made with Beechworth honey - nothing to do with my job, this one; just pure relaxation.

Passionfruit flower

It was 50th birthday time for Him Outdoors, so we had some friends round to drink beers and talk nonsense - strange how the two things are directly related...

One of the best beers in the world

A seriously stunning selection

One happy, sleepy Birthday Boy

Another happy sleepy boy

Big thanks to Howdy Neighbour for this brilliant gift of socks and sandals combined in one, to save time and effort in one's attempts to look like a complete plonker.

Socks AND sandals!

Cricket and morning runs

At the ODI between Australia and New Zealand at Manuka Oval, Australia won by 116 runs. It was never really close. The winners on the day were David Warner and the sunset; both of which were brilliant.

A morning run takes me past this letterbox where one can deliver post to Landsend. 

AKIBA! It makes me happy!

AKIBA restaurant received the Australian Financial Review Top Restaurant's People's Choice Award for 2016. I can see a few reasons for this: the delectable pork buns; the sensational gin list; the insanely good dumplings.

Prawn and chicken dumplings