8th January 2002

Happy New Year to you and all yours. I trust you all had an excellent
Christmas and have now settled down and got your noses firmly against the
grindstone. The family Nash packed their presents into the car and we set
off for Weymouth at about three in the morning to catch the last 7.00am
ferry to the Channel Islands. That was the Friday before Christmas and I
have really lost track of the days since then and I am only getting my
bearings about now. I didn't go too mad in the drinks department but I can
honestly say there were a few nights when I retired with very red teeth.
The ferry journey out was good and I wasn't sick which is a major
acheivement for me because as soon as there is the slightest rolling then
I have to get up on deck and keep my eyes on the horizon or I will lose my
breakfast. It was only on the journey home that I found the cure for
sea-sickness and that is to lie on the floor and fall asleep whilst
listening to music. Claire had a bad journey on the way home and spent
about three hours sitting on a cold steel chest on deck to keep a lid on
her stomach. Unfortunately this meant her arse was frozen and only began
to thaw when we had been on land for about an hour. The only words to sum
up the days between the two boat trips are good food, good drink and
excellent company and we are lucky to have such great freinds. The weather
was a lot warmer in Jersey than it was on the mainland despite being in
the English Channel. It was around 8 degrees on most days (don't know what
that is in old money) and very mild for the time of year. Highlights of
the holidays include being unbeaten champ in 1980's Trivial Pursuit. I can
olny think that my depth of knowledge about the period means I wasn't
drinking or doing enough drugs during that time which I guess is a good
thing with hindsight. I went flying with Bomber Pack over Jersey and flew
out to a bunch of rocks called The Minques which is pronounced Minkeys
(like Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther "'ave yoo a lysonce for da
minkey?"). Managed to catch a stomach bug that gave me rusty water for 48
hours but managed to get a few Guinness' down my neck on New Year's Eve
which almost got me back to level par. I am currently drinking the last
bottle of red wine in my rack and hopefully that will be it for a month
while the liver is in the wash. As I missed the chat last week because of
travel fatigue I will put an extra hour in this Thursday so I will hope to
see you there for further holiday tales. Finally, if I have managed to do
this correctly then at the top of this page you will have a picture of St
Brelade's Bay on Christmas Day. This was the view from my window. Enjoy!
result. The kids enjoyed it and it was nice not to have to do a 400 mile
round trip to watch some football. I know I get a lot of stick for the
sport on this page but you can't have rock 'n' roll all the time (or
Boooogie Wooooogie ).
I'm off to the studio to listen to the sound of my own voice for as few
hours. Ouch! See you next week.