December is always a busy month. Last year I went out too much, drank too much, travelled around too much and was suffering for weeks after it all finished (although it was all good fun). You live and learn - that's the theory anyway. This year I'm doing much more than last year - the diary is full, and I'm resorting to seeing friends from home on Christmas day when I'd usually stay at home to fit everything in. It bothers me that I'm hardly going to be at home in Haydock this year, but hopefully I'll get to see everyone at some point.

This weekend I'm out in Leeds on Saturday night and back in St. Helens for a lunch with some school friends on Sunday. Next weekend I'm down in London to meet a friend before going on to a house party. I'm working right up to Christmas Eve, but I'll be travelling back to St. Helens after work on that day for the annual get-together back there. I'll finally make it home to Haydock after midnight, and spend the day there before travelling back to Leeds for more festive cheer on Boxing Day. The next day it's down to Reading by train (which I still have not been able to book yet - madness) for a party. The day after I'm back home to Leeds to get ready for my week-long stay at Plane Castle that starts on Wednesday.

Having just typed that out it now seems a bit of a scary undertaking (not to mention expensive), but it'll fun. I'm leaving the car at home for the trips to London and Reading and travelling by train, which will give me a much-appreciated break from all the driving.

The first event on the festive going-out list was last night, the ubiquitous Energis Christmas Party. I bought a new, compact and relatively cheap digital camera yesterday to complement my big and relatively expensive one, and used it to take these photos of the event. Some of the pictures are a little blurry which is mainly to me not giving the camera sufficient time to properly focus before taking the picture (although in later pictures I think that a general alcoholic disrepair was a more telling factor).

So this is my camera. I was a bit unsure about getting a second digital camera but, now that the software, battery and casing on my camera mobile are all knackered out, and with a desire to take better quality pictures when I'm out and about - well, it seemed like a good idea. It's going to go everywhere with me, now that after just nine months in service I'm shelving my Motorola V500 that took all these pictures. It's back to a trusty work-issue Nokia 6210i for me.