Hi everybody:
First of all, may I wish all of you who celebrate them a happy Yalda and merry Christmas? I hope you had nice celebrations in your families or with friends. Here is what we did:

We had a wonderful dinner of tongue, mashed potatoes, vegetables and two kinds of salad, which was really delicious. I had not had tongue, one of my favourite foods, for ages, and this was incredibly great. We also had candles turned on, though no Christmas tree, but I did not miss it. For dessert there were apples, oranges and some other strange kind of seeds. People also had pomegranates with or without salt. And then later we had ice-cream and delicious pastry, followed by the mandatory tea. I tell you, this family gathering was really both entertaining and relaxing. On a personal note: I also found somebody who was as much into tennis as I am, so we had a good time exchanging views on different tennis players, their game and personality and the development of tennis in general. It was quite a bit of fun.

So let's see if tomorrow the weather is better, so Shadow and I can finally go on the long walk we had always wanted to take from Berkley home, cheers for now, Chris:-)