Apparently Johnson had a friend over Christmas Eve

Victoria in the fog

This is nothing to do with Christmas but I just thought I'd mention that I had to go to Victoria again last week and it was on a very foggy day. That meant I got caught in a convoy of vehicles doing 50mph for a good part of the journey. Although that was frustrating it did have the effect of bumping my mileage up to 23.2 mpg
It did drop to 19.2 mpg on the way home against the wind but still pretty impressive for a 5.4 litre engine; I reckon the UK equivalent to be nearly 28 mpg; only 2 mpg less than my old 1600cc UK Ford!
So, back to Christmas and here are more pictures labeled More Christmas 07

Tartan Ted's Christmas card

For the second year running I have singularly failed to prepare cards in time for Christmas. No one in the UK will be getting one this year and few, if any, in the USA. Bit of a disaster really!
Oh well I thought I'd take a family picture by the Christmas tree and post it online with this lame excuse and maybe some folks will forgive and forget that "the Teds" have seemingly disappeared off the face of the planet.

That was the idea but as can be seen from these photographs, labeled Christmas 07, it is not easy to get everyone facing the same way at the same time; even if that amazing feat is achieved there are some really strange facial expressions to contend with and I'm not that proficient at Photoshop!
So here is a non flash photo of the kids and dog by the tree

A total lack of recall ...

Our new dog, Johnson, is a sweet dog, good with the children, gentle and loving. However - show him a seagull and you can say goodbye to any response to your commands until he is tired out running up and down the beach.
Check out our trip to the beach here labeled Port Aransas and see the small speck of a dog in the far distance of the photos enjoying a good run in the surf.
I guess I have a bit of work to do with him on the recall command as well as his walking to heel!
Anyway he certainly got enough exercise today and is fast asleep beside me as I type this entry.

A Saltire for Santa

Christmas time has come to Rockport and today was spent setting up the Christmas lights except that we are supposed to call them holiday lights. As an ex pat of the UK I see no reason to refer to this season by the name "holiday" since, in the UK I used to have a month off at this time of year and here in the USA I get one day - Christmas Day - whoopee!
Anyway our new dog, Johnson, sat patiently in the front yard all day while I climbed a wobbly sixteen foot ladder and hung all the lights that you see in this picture. Tomorrow I will finish the job by stringing lights on the trees to the left of this picture; then we will be visible from space.
For those who do not know; the Saltire is the Scottish flag and is made up of a blue background with a white St Andrew's cross layed on top, a fair representation thereof now lies in lights in my front yard.