Happy detouring this season!

Happy Holidays, friends and family, wherever you are this Christmas and New Year's.
Some of you are travelling and many are staying close to hearth and home. I'm repeating my beach & bubbly routine, returning to same spot on Bondi Beach where I have been for the past three Christmas Days. This year, I have a special French Champagne and a good book to read - plus plenty of sun tan oil and block. It may reach 100 F/38 C and that means there will be thousands more flocking to Sydney's iconic beach. (Click here if you have broadband and want to see MY BEACH live on webcam. I'm the one wearing a new black swimsuite and waving at the camera .)

The day after Chrissie is a national holiday downunder - called Boxing Day - and this year I think I will go to Coogee beach (I have been working on weekends at a apartment-hotel on the beach) . I want to steer away from the 12,000 Pomies (Brittish tourists) that flock to Bondi each Boxing Day. Last year, of course, was the traumatic tsunami in Indonesia, and I expect there will be memorial services on the beach and on everyone's mind of course. Hard to believe that as bad as that was, Katrina and the devastion in Pakistan/Kashmir were even worse. What a year to forget!

I am leaving Sydney after nearly a year to return on the New Year to Melbourne, an easier city to live in, although with not so nice beaches on the bay instead of ocean. Maybe this is the year some of you will put OZ on your itinerary and come visit me in Victoria.

I am looking forward to zooming around my new hometown on a Vespa (Santa's bringing me a sexy black helmet; and I'm buying the scooter once I'm settled from the move) and my New Year's Resolution is to establish my official handicap (it will be a high number as a golf hacker:>) ).

What's happening in your corner of the world? Please let me hear from you, either through comments on this blog, a phone call or email.

Cheers from dee-touring Dee downunder.