snapshots of my current life in Boulder

losing my best cashmere jumper for three days, thinking it's gone forever, and then finding it being used as a doll's underblanket

Cece sitting on the downstairs loo down the corridor shouting out, a propos of nothing: "I love you, Sue!"

the pedicurist telling me she likes my socks and my responding that I bought them at McGuckins (a well-known Boulder independent hardware shop) and feeling like a local

wondering why the baked potatoes aren't cooking at 200 degrees, and Isaac reminding me that they cook in Fahrenheit over here, not Centigrade

seeing a bobcat in the garden - halfway in size between a domestic cat and a labrador - and finding out they are vicious, eat deer as well as rodents, should be avoided as urgently as one would avoid a bear (which I saw in the garden last year) and that animal control should immediately be alerted

playing game after game after game after game of Guess Who (fortunately I like Guess Who)

eating the tastiest Christmas turkey I have had in years

seeing seven deer calmly grazing in the garden (on a different day from the bobcat's visit)

mastering the vast washer, the immense dryer, the dishwasher, learning which day the weekly milk is delivered and where to store it, but failing to realise that the temperature one cooks things at should be not only in Fahrenheit, but also altered for the higher altitude 

loving the way the children say "aminals" not "animals" and hoping this continues for another couple of years

being so pleased at a delivery of ready made food from a friend of Isaac and Wendy's and then when warming it up, managing to burn it (though the majority of it was edible); oh dear, it seems that anything to do with cooking over here has been my Achilles heel

taking an afternoon walk in crisp air under a blue sky with a view of the mountains, wearing my sunglasses 

being so delighted at learning how to use the complicated television controls that I do a victory dance, waving my arms around and puncturing the paper lampshade with the remote 

watching the Ellen DeGeneres show (during the aforementioned pedicure) where a novice screenwriter is picked up in a Starbucks and asked by Ellen to say what the screenplay is about in three words, and thinking OMG a one sentence logline was hard enough, and watching enviously as she is invited onto the show to have a scene acted out by Ellen and Tom Hanks, and then when they ham it up, feeling grateful it's not my screenplay they are massacring

drinking wine during the pedicure and moving on to a Mexican restaurant with Isaac and Wendy and getting sozzled on just one margarita and wondering if alcohol makes you drunker quicker at higher altitudes (Boulder is a mile high)

realising with some dismay (at my insularity?) that the kids telly programmes I enjoy the most are either English or Irish....oooh,  oooh, apart from Paw Patrol

Wishing you all a Happy New Year from Boulder!