Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to everyone – I hope 2011 is all that you wish it to be! Had an interesting Christmas & New Year. Flew up to Brisbane December 23rd to spend Christmas with the family on the Sunshine Coast. On the way up had an aborted takeoff (first time ever!) – quite a scary experience really when the plane goes full throttle only then to power down and the pilots jam on the brakes – and then after finally arriving in Brisbane approx 2hrs late had a great big hole in my suitcase:

But thankfully Qantas luggage services had a new suitcase on hand which they promptly offered as a replacement and which I couldn’t knock back (i’d actually been looking for a new suitcase prior to the incident with the one above so the timing couldn’t be better) – the only problem is the new one is quite large:

Anyway – an early Christmas present from Qantas! Thankfully nothing inside the suitcase was damaged in the incident apart from the suitcase itself. Had a good Christmas with the family, my brother and his partner flying up from Melbourne, and my grandmother popping over. From Christmas day until the day we left QLD (December 30th) it was non-stop rain due to the la nina weather pattern, but it wasn’t too much of an issue as i’d come down with a cold/flu and so pretty much all my holidays (up until today) have been spent either inside resting or at the GP ! Finally starting to feel a little bit better and hoping to get back on the bicycle soon to train for the 3 peaks challenge in March…

Happy Holidays (and yes – that is a massive Christmas cracker)!