Happy New Year!

Here we are back in London, where the light is flat and gray and the winds are chilly. Today's lows are supposed to be just above freezing -- a far cry from Florida, where I was sitting out in shorts and a t-shirt!

You may remember that as I wrote yesterday's post, I was sitting in an airport bar with Dave, waiting for our plane. Well, no sooner did I finish writing than Dave came back from a trip to the bathroom, hurriedly looked through his stuff and said with a touch of panic in his voice, "Where's my computer?"

Yes, folks, you read that right. For the second time on this trip, Dave had lost his school laptop.

At first we thought someone took it out of his shoulder bag while he was in the bathroom and I was typing away on my blog. In fact, I announced as much to the bartenders, but they seemed skeptical. And sure enough, Dave learned from the TSA agents that he'd left it at security, and it had been sent to a police office in the main terminal.

Of course our flight was boarding as all this unfolded, so Dave wound up sprinting through the terminal to the police office, retrieving the laptop, sprinting back, going through security again while I sweated wondering if he was going to make it in time. (I pondered the ethical dilemmas: Should I get on the plane alone? Why should both of us have to pay for a new flight? Would that be selfish or sensible?) Obviously, in the end, he got there.

I told him he is NO LONGER ALLOWED to travel with that damn computer. Of course, I don't make the rules, and he needs the computer, so that declaration isn't going to stick. But I felt better saying it.

And surprise, surprise -- Olga came back last night! No, not because of bad behavior. I texted Simone yesterday afternoon to let her know we'd returned to London, and although I could have sworn she'd originally said she couldn't bring us Olga on New Year's Eve, she did. So Olga was reunited with her Kong and her back garden -- you can see she's distracted by squirrel activity in the photo above. We were all able to ring in the new year together! (And no, we didn't stay up until midnight.)

Yesterday I sorted laundry and organized the house a bit. I haven't had a chance to take many pictures -- the top photo shows a dunnock on our suet feeder. The feeder itself was knocked off the pole and completely empty when we got home yesterday morning. Squirrels, I'm betting! I took that photo through a window, and you can see the reflection of our Christmas lights in the glass, like a fading holiday apparition.