Why is this Polar Bear brown?

This is another Christmas decoration. It is apparently a brown polar bear covered with snow.

Well I dragged all the boxes up and have been through every last one of them. I had to do this as - being the way they are - removalists pack a box so that everything fits - not because it makes sense to put the same sorts of things together. So if they have a space to fill they will go to another shelf - or even another room - to find something that fits that space. So I found history, biography and fiction all together and had quite a bit of sorting to do.

As we didn't bring most of our bookcases with us the majority of boxes will have to go back downstairs - but at least I have labeled them so we now know what is in them. I am not sure why this is important because we may never open most of them again.

I have learned some very valuable lessons about having other people pack your things and will be much better prepared next time.

I found some astonishing things - which I haven't seen for many years. There are some great books I am going to revisit and are in piles in my study. I am not allowed to throw away anything belonging to Cate so she still has a number of boxes to ferret about in one day.

She has arrived safely in Korea but did not have a good flight on Duckair as the beds in business class are not completely flat - and being as tall as she is there are always problems when the beds aren't flat. However, she says that Seoul looks better than it did last time she was there a month or so ago - but I am struggling to think what could have changed in two months. Perhaps last time she went Pyongyang by mistake.

While I was doing the books I listened to the speeches by Barack Obama and John McCain. John says he will balance the budget and achieve victory in Iraq. This is excellent news because both these things have been worrying the bejesus out of me for some time now.

The other good news for John is that Al Qaeda has endorsed him for President - on the basis that he will be good for their recruiting drive. No - I am not making this up. John didn't mention this in his speech but he had a lot of ground to cover.

I did manage to damage my back again so am going to lie down. You are getting a truncated version of the Blog today and may miss out tomorrow.