The last two days have been absolute chaos at my hotel near Heathrow. The airlines have had to cancel hundreds of flights due to freezing fog and the hotels around the airport have been inundated with stranded travellers. Aude and I are crossing our fingers and hoping that the weather lifts in time for us to fly to France on Christmas Eve.

My Christmas cards are sent, and as the year draws to a close, I thought I would use my blog to reflect on the past year rather than send out a “Christmas Letter”. Mostly because I’m lazy and this is easier.

As I look back over the past year (which is easy to do, since it’s all neatly documented online), I’m amazed at how much we’ve managed to squeeze into twelve months – some of it feels like a lifetime ago, some of it feels like it was just yesterday.

At least I can take some reassurance in the cyclical nature of the world. Some things never change. Air travel is still stressful, and nothing ever works out quite the way you planned. A year ago we were waiting for Aude’s parents to arrive. The finally made it, a few hours late, but had to spend the entire holiday in what they’d worn on the plane as their luggage took in a scenic journey of Europe.

Happily, they were reunited with their luggage when they got back home a few days later. Aude and I joined them, and together we rang in 2006 in style in the south of France, this time with all of our luggage and a full complement of family and friends. Minouche, the cat, was still a kitten and kept us all entertained.

Minouche got lost, but thankfully was found several weeks later, looking fairly sorry for herself. Cats will be cats. She’s now doing well and steadily putting on weight – she’ll look like Daisy and Calypso in no time.

Sadly, we had to say goodbye to a number of friends this year including Faouzia and Alain and Julien, who moved to France, Alessandro and Virgine, who have gone off exploring the world, and countless others who have moved to Walton Oaks (!). I’ve also had to say goodbye to most of the friends I worked with on my consulting projects down here, as they’ve moved on to other clients and other parts of the world.

We’ve both moved this year – 100 metres down the road in both cases – to our new place in Canterbury where we’re finally settled in. The back garden has been a godsend and we’ve used it constant throughout the summer for entertaining and barbeques. I can’t believe I lived so long in England without a garden.

I’ve changed jobs, but that doesn’t mean very much as a consultant. I still managed to spend more than a hundred nights in a hotel this year, where I’m greeted more like a long-lost friend than a guest when I arrive. And I still seem to find the most glamorous clients slung around the far side of the M25 – meaning hundreds of miles each week in gridlocked traffic.

In March, I crashed my car. Much to my embarrassment.

We’ve done our fair share of travel this year. We’ve been skiing in France, where Aude did her impression of Les Bronzes and I demonstrated “what not to wear”. I went to Washington to visit my parents. We visited Thailand for Songkran and got absolutely doused. We visited Alsace, Basel, Zurich and saw our friends get married in Nancy. We visited Aude’s grandfather in Orbec. We visited friends in Paris and we went to Scotland to see Mike and Karen getting married, where I was so inspired that I decided to get engaged myself.

We had some visitors, too – Aude’s parents in December, Joan and Joey in July, and my parents, Dasha and Nick in November. And Aude’s brother, Jerome, who has come to see us countless times – although I’m convinced it’s only because he fancies a change from the food in the office canteen!

We’ve had plenty of good food and wine this year. I ate testicles. And frog’s legs. And I seem to have spent most of the month of December in black tie.

All in all, it’s been a very good year, and one I’ll look back upon fondly. To those of you reading this who I haven’t heard from in a while – I’d love to hear what you’re up to, even if it’s only in a Christmas letter.

Best wishes to everyone for a merry Christmas and happy New Year!