The ramblings of Keane Ingram

Christmas is over, the kids are back at school - I'm very glad things are back to normal and I can now remember what day it is! I'm not a fan of Christmas. If it were up to me, I'd hide myself away somewhere warm and try and ignore it, but I try and make an effort for the kids.

We went for our annual grandmothers + kids trip to the pantomime, this time my brother and niece came along for their first pantomime trip. They both loved it, my niece especially was screaming throughout and cackling away. I'm sure we'll all be going again next Christmas!


For the first time in a decade we didn't have Christmas at ours, instead we went to Anna's parents. It meant things were a bit less stressed as we didn't have to do all the dinner preparations, etc. We were woken up very early after going to bed very late (thanks Kitty!) but the kids were all happy with their presents. I got a great Bottom-related mug from Anna:


It was also the first time in a decade that I took time off over Christmas, but I don't feel any more relaxed for it - in fact, it'd probably have been more relaxing if I could have escaped to my desk each day!

The kids' main present was a trip to Alexandra Palace to see Peter Pan Goes Wrong - they loved it when it was on the BBC a few years ago and they have watched it enough times that they can quote the whole thing off by heart.


The show was great - it's very impressive how the actors can pretend to be so bad! It's pretty similar to the BBC production so the kids were very happy.

I've got a couple of new year's resolutions which I've been keeping so far. First is to do Duolingo every day - I want to brush up my French skills before our holiday in France in July. Secondly I want to play an instrument every day. I've treated myself to a new bass guitar, an Ibanez GSR200, which is so much nicer to play than the Encore I was using before. I've started using Yousician again and am really enjoying it, but managed to get a blister yesterday!

I also want to get fitter and lose a bit of weight, also related to the holiday - for some reason French swimming pools are strict with their allowed attire so I don't want to look too bad in budgie smugglers! I've still also got the vague notion of doing a triathlon before I'm 40 (just over 10 months to go now), hopefully once the cold I've got has gone I can start trying to run again.