Boast Letter

We never send a boast letter with our Christmas cards but, while rude about the ones we receive, do like to hear peoples' news. So:-

"Dear All

I can hardly believe another year has gone by. It seems like yesterday when I sat down to give you last year's news from the ON household. What a busy year it has been! [Why do people write this twaddle]

The year started, as have the last few, in Northumberland with friends and we celebrated our fortieth birthdays in January with a fantastic party in the Signet Library in Edinburgh. Most of you were there. It was a huge privilege to be able to eat, drink and dance with so many of our friends and family in such a superb setting. It was a highlight not only of this year, but of the last 40.

The first few months of the year saw builders in this house and we are now firmly moved in to (and have messed up) the really quite good space they have created in our attic. The small child has moved up there and, at least for a while, kept many of her toys there. While the project had its bad days (twice flooding our downstairs neighbour who was really pretty stoical throughout; the constant complaints from next door about the noise - a bit much - we didn't once mention theirs when they did it; nights with buckets to catch the drips from the light fittings as the rain poured through the (admittedly) enormous hole in the roof) we quite miss the Bobs as they were christened.

We remain very busy at work although change is afoot. Mrs ON has served notice of retiral from her firm and, while she expects to continue to do some work for them, intends to have more time with the small child at least for the meantime. This gives us the ability to consider a house move and we are currently looking for a new house for 2008, probably in North Northumberland so I will become a commuter. I am strangely relishing the prospect of starting my working day a little earlier on the train and trying to bring some sort of regularity to my evening hours, which this year have been frequently out of control. This all seems like considerable upheaval after 10 years of very stable living, but at the same time life should not stand still and many people cope with far greater, far less self imposed, change. 2008 will therefore be exciting. Work has been its usual mix of company and commercial work, although the opportunity to work with my private client colleagues on a significant (and very last minute) heritage purchase of a house and its furniture collections was a highlight of the working year.

We are not wide travellers these days. We did however have a good Easter week in Belford (hot and sunny) and returned (being the creatures of habit we are) to Sardinia in the summer. We went to London in October to admire our good friends' new baby and hope to see them again next week for New Year.

Away from work we continue to try and spend as many week-ends as possible in Belford. We missed a lot in the early part of the year because of the building works here, but since April we have been a lot. We continue to enjoy the beaches and countryside. I have golfed sporadically and fished a few days on the Kyle of Sutherland rivers, the Ettrick and the Tummel; we continue to garden away; and have added to the already many pictures about the place. I have limited the feeding of my D Y Cameron habit to one etching and, just this week, a really nice drawing - I feel very virtuous at having resisted a fantastic oil of Iona Abbey seen in London in October. Again because of the building works we didn't see many people here in the early part of the year but have, since the summer, eaten and drunk too much with at least some of you and have been fortunate to have been away for week-ends with some of you. We remain involved with a number of organisations away from work including CHAS, Queen Street Gardens, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and the Muir Maxwell Trust.

The small child continues to love school. One of the serious downsides of a move is the need to move her. She has persisted, mostly with enjoyment, with the piano and riding lessons and has many friends, through school, but also more widely through Brownies and ballet. She is on the whole great fun and a general life enhancer.

Christmas sees us as godparents, tomorrow, to my brother's daughter. We will all be there bar my youngest brother who has emigrated to Australia - holiday opportunity there. They arrived a month ago and have settled down quickly. Otherwise our families change some, but not greatly. We will see them over the next fortnight and are looking forward to it.

Roll out the goose and a decent bottle of burgundy. Have a very happy Christmas one and all and all the very best for 2008.

Lots of love

ON"

Pass me a bucket!

Festive cheer

It is my office party on Friday night. I am not going. My non-attendance is not as a result of being a miserable old curmudgeon, although I am, but as a consequence of being invited in June when Christmas is completely beyond my contemplation. I would happily compromise on venue (indeed I would be happy to revert to the days when it was a drunken standing up affair in the office) not to have to think about it until at least October. It is now a casualty of two too full diaries.

This city (when it is not raining the way it is this evening) looks fantastic at this time of year. The lights in the trees in Princes Street Gardens are understated but beautiful. They somehow enhance, rather than overshadow, the slightly more garish lights of the big wheel and "Winter Wonderland". We wandered through the gardens on Sunday having been to the superb Joan Eardley exhibition at the RSA in busy crowds of people at the German (-ish) Market. It was dry and cold and the sun had set, leaving odd bits of light behind. It was soon enough to contemplate things festive.

Confused again

I have had a strange Sunday night. It is very unusual for us to go out on Sundays - sheer force of habit - we sharpen our pencils and polish our shoes for the week ahead in this house. Tonight we have been to two things. First we went to a book launch. It was very interesting. It was at Valvonna & Croalla, by any standards an institution; John Bellany illustrated the book (he is one of my favourite artists - I can't really afford his work, but have a watercolour and a screen print); he spoke (indeed read, but got away with it, because he is genuinely a great man); Philip Contini of V&C sang at 10 minutes notice, beautifully; someone read the poems - I'm sorry I can't remember her name - she read at another book launch we went to recently so its unforgivable that I can't remember who she is - my wife will know because her Granny revered Scottish actresses - I can only remember Elaine C Smith. It was a very Scottish evening in a literary and artistic kind of way.

Then we went to a party for the Muir Maxwell Trust which is a charity which raises funds to relieve suffering from childhood epilepsy. It was held in a really smart venue in central Edinburgh. The last time I was there is sold good beer. Tonight there was champagne, canapes and celebs. There was a persistent photographer - we are not photogenic! It was a very nice party, but very different from the book launch in almost every way.

I suspect neither event is me really. We had fish and chips for supper and felt better.

Selling the family silver?

One of the limited privileges of working in my office is that we have some good pictures. They are not all ours (one or two are borrowed) but most of them are. I and one of my partners form the Art Committee. I went to the Edinburgh College of Art Alumni Centenary Exhibition last week. Many of the artists in our collection were represented. I vowed to try and appreciate our pictures a bit more. On Friday we sold two (not borrowed ones)!

We have an emerging philosophy of buying work with some relevance to the work we do by Scottish artists, or from Scottish galleries, with whom we have a connection. We have a very small budget, hence the sales. It is the first time in a long time we've sold anything and it feels great. They were good little pictures, but if we are going to try and move the collection on there is no choice but to sell things that don't sit within it or simply act as wallpaper. For so many people what we have is irrelevant. We are keen to acquire some things that people notice - whether they like them or not is irrelevant. What matters is that the working environment for staff and clients is enhanced, even if only by having something to talk about. This week having sold we have the opportunity and the budget to buy something. The money is burning a hole in my pocket.

Happy Holidays

I did say the visits would be occasional! For some reason holiday times seem to become overwhelmingly hectic and getting to a computer accordingly difficult. Half term in this house finished last Tuesday. We came home just in time for our daughter to go to Brownies on Tuesday evening- she goes to Brownies: we go to the pub, returning for her an hour later to breath beer fumes over Brown Owl. It is an established pattern.

The week before we go away is always all consuming work-wise notwithstanding the fact that one is now never truly away in the sense that emails follow everywhere. We need real deadlines (flights to catch; distance between us and the office) or we just stay put.

This time we had a deadline, in that we had friends for lunch and Alwinton Show on the Saturday, but no distance so we ended up back in Edinburgh on Sunday, collecting our daughter on the way to the London train on Monday morning. We had a great time in London - the parks looked beautiful in their autumn colours, the sun shone and we pottered about in a thoroughly touristy manner - Sound of Music: Terracotta Warriors; Tower of London; Hamleys. We remembered while we were there that we had friends coming to stay on the Thursday. It was great to see them - their son fell in the sea (but had spare clothes); we golfed in almost isolation on a fantastic sunny afternoon; we ate too much good food; drank too much Co-op Beaujolais and generally caught up with people of whom we see too little. Its strange how life changes without any sort of plan so that people you used to see three times a week you see three times a year. They went home on Saturday after lunch leaving us alone until our return home on Tuesday.

We ran straight back to Northumberland on Friday night. We have had our house there now for exactly four years - I know that because I saw Johnny Wilkinson kick his World Cup winning drop goal in Ikea as we sought (and managed) to acquire the entire contents of a house in under an hour. My bank phoned on the following Monday to ask if someone had stolen my credit card! We had many hopes for it and have not been disappointed. One was that our daughter would spend at least some of her time on the beach. She emerged on to the beach at Cheswick this morning, with her picnic on her back and her trousers rolled up and just pottered along consumed by her own thoughts - makes it worthwhile in itself.

Living better

I had a whole day in the fresh air yesterday. I don't fish many days a year, but on Friday spent a day on the Ettrick. Fishing conditions were not great with low water and bright sunshine, but the countryside looked fantastic in the warm autumn sunshine and, were it not for the fact that I am instilled with a sense of fishing duty ("You'll catch nothing without your fly I the water"), I would have been happy sleeping under a tree. I went with a friend and client, we took a lot of food (6 pies in 6 hours), a bottle of red and a few pounds for beer. We stopped at the pub for an hour in the afternoon (too bright to fish we told ourselves) and chatted idly with a fishing party from Yorkshire. Were it not for the fact that I seem to have bent the undercarriage of my car driving across a field (I should have known better fishing, like golf, being a walking, carrying game) it would have been a near perfect day.

Tomorrow I am going to Kelso Races, another favourite day out, again in the fresh air, although I fear in the rain. If I am feeling really determined to live better I will golf first - Goswick at 7.00, Parents for coffee, Kelso at 12.00. Its tight but do-able schedule.

Living badly

I seem to go through periods of living badly - too much work and too much work related eating and drinking. The next week or two (in fact three if you count half term week which follows them) look like being more sensible. The latest bout of excess ended on Friday. It has involved some late nights in the office; some dashing around the country both north and south; a lot of lunch; and in one week dinners on consecutive mid-week nights. Its not exactly going down a mine or walking the streets of Bazra (and I am grateful for both) but it takes its toll in its own way. I always, at the end of a period like that, feel less like doing it ever again.

Friday night was however only work related in the vaguest sense. I am a member of a small dining club. It is connected with the WS Society of which I am a member. It exists (the club; not the Society) for the sole purpose of having an annual dinner in the Signet Library. The Library is a beautiful building with one of the most stunning Georgian interiors in Edinburgh (and hence Britain and the World). My wife and I had a joint fortieth birthday party there in January which was fantastic and it was a huge privilege to have so many of our friends together in such a superb setting. The club uses one of the Library's smaller rooms and Friday night was its 30th dinner. The room is beautiful, lit by candles only, with the Society's silver in use; our guest was a distinguished, interesting and controversial retired member of parliament - he spoke with conviction and stimulated conversation; the chairman (elected annually to chair the dinner) was one of the founder members and was able to produce the letter he and three colleagues wrote inviting the original members to join; the food was first class and the claret (which the club buys ahead using a wine levy on members) incomparable to what I usually drink. It was a great occasion and a suitable way to mark 30 years of the club. Saturday I was hungover again!