Sauntering Vaguely Downward

Somehow I was under the impression that I didn't do much travelling in December. Making this video reminded me that I went to London twice as well as Harwell and then Norfolk for Christmas. I didn't fly, but I certainly spent a lot of time on trains and in the car.

The full year video reminded me that I flew to new places for conferences: Hamburg (Germany), Nicosia (Cyprus) and Larnaka (Cyprus). I visited my parents in the USA. I went to Paris (France), Darmstadt (Germany), and Frascati (Italy) for workshops. We travelled as family by train across Western Europe to go to a conference in Vienna (Austria). We holidayed in Wales and Norfolk. I went to Maui (USA) for a conference. It was an incredibly busy year.

( Full year - 12 min 30 sec )

Regarding the penultimate video (30 October): Whenever the bloke goes away, Astro goes into a heightened state of alertness. He comes into the front room every evening to inspect the adult humans. If he finds me alone, he will go and sit on the mat by the front door. He curls up and faces me with his ears back, half-closes his eyes, and stays there until I go to bed. He follows me upstairs and curls up on the landing. I don't know if he stays there all night, but I often find him there when I get up in the morning.

If he sees both of us in the front room, he will come and stand on me for a short while, make biscuits on my legs, and then transfer to the bloke's lap, where he rolls onto his back and flops out blissfully. It's as if he can't relax completely if Alpha Cat isn't present.

Comet, on the other hand, couldn't care less about us in the evening. He's only interested if Humuhumu is around and has left her door open so he can sleep on her bed. When she isn't here, he walks around the landing and gives occasional plaintive yowls.

Despite all the Welsh holiday footage, Astro managed to sneak in here quite a lot. Meeting the talkative long-eared owl was one of the highlights. She had many and varied opinions.

I can't quite believe how much has happened this month. At least 60 days of stuff were packed into June's 30. And now we're halfway through the year. Dear Time, Please slow down, Love, Me.

I rather missed the boat on this one, apologies for its lateness. In my defence, we've mostly not been in the UK for the past two weeks.

April starts off quite domestic with lots of cat clips, and finishes in central Europe with lots of adventure clips. We travelled from [home] to Vienna, Austria via nine different trains, one of which morphed into a German rail replacement bus services which turned out to be terribly civilised.