Myself with friend Clare and Laura.
The Christmas party took place at High Barn, converted and now used as a music venue for live acoustic/jazz and a recording studio. Our entertainment for the evening was provided by Beauty and the Beasts, a covers band lead by Franco from our renewals department and joined on stage by two "surprise" guests... Lee (one of the directors) who played guitar while dressed as Father Christmas and Laura who belted out "Man, I Feel Like a Woman" to the amazement of the audience. They all certainly provided music to bop along too (even if it was just for a couple of songs).
It was also special to have Iwan and Richard from Isle Interactive (who are the brains behind a lot of our web development) and Ben Rexworthy from Securinet (our information security consultant). Both Iwan and Ben are personal friends so it is always good to catch up with them.
Ben from Securinet explaining the complexities of becoming a CISSP to James and myself.
The night went very quickly and all seemed to have a good time. It was just a shame that we all had to get up to work the next morning... (except for the clever few who had booked the day off... LAURA!!!!).
Click on the picture below for more pictures.
The bands are fantastic – fresh, energetic and full of passion. The talks are relevant for today’s young people (and they still talk to me too!!) and are full of wisdom and insight. What stands out is the level of professionalism in the music and production – for something that is run by students its amazing (no offence to students!). 
Anyway, we started the long job of searching for a house again. We’d originally put our offer in on the house back in September 2005, so the market (and prices) had moved on by then. We were really hoping to move to the village of Linton as this was right in the middle of our two jobs. There weren’t many houses on the market and we were getting desperate… but we wanted to remain patient and wait for the right house to come along.
Our big holiday this year was a trip to Natal in Brazil at the end of March. It was a great time of chilling on the windswept beach, floating in the pool and discovering a tiny bit of the scenery, culture and history of such a vast country. We really enjoyed our short stay in the comfy hotel and came back to England feeling thoroughly refreshed.
Arriving back in the UK we had just a few days to finalise packing everything from our house into boxes before moving it all into storage and moving to a rented room in Cambridge. When our house purchase had originally fallen through we decided that we would move out of our house in Little Thetford at the beginning of 
At the end of April my work (ESco Business Services) moved into its new purpose built premises on a picturesque hillside in the Essex countryside. It was huge step up from the converted piggery that we had previously worked in and has really helped to make it a great company to work for.
The day we moved into the house we also inherited two cute little fluffy kittens called Josh & Toby. Our friends Ben & Becs had had to give them up because poor Becs was very allergic to them. They have brought real joy and companionship since we’ve moved to Linton and they are always a pleasure to watch as they still act like little kittens on their mad half hour.
One of my highlights from 
In 
One of the best parties we attended this year was for Laura, a friend from work. It was held at the beginning of 
Soul Survivor 2006 was one of the highlights of the year for me. It is a Christian annual youth event held in Somerset and we took the youth group from church down. The week was full of good sung worship, teaching, great bands and fun back at the campsite. It was great to see the youth group bond with each other as well as grow in their own relationship with God.
At the end of 
On the Sunday we drove to the Eden Project (below) which was pretty awe-inspiring and kept us entertained for the day, but as we were just setting off to head back to Cambridge the car made some very scary crunching noises... that was the end of the Vectra! We had to make the long journey back to Cambridge in a little Corsa – never again!
The end of September saw us take a short trip north to Thornham in Norfolk for our cluster weekend away. (Our cluster is a group of about 30 people from church who meet together every 2 weeks.) Again we were blessed with lovely weather and managed to do a walk across the muddy/sandy beach before heading back to the cottage (below) for a lovely dinner with everyone else.
Our second major holiday this year was a long weekend break to Ireland in 
In 
In 
The final highlight of the year was our New Year’s Eve party which we again hosted at our house. Ang had arranged a murder mystery evening with our friends in Cambridge and everyone made a great effort to dress up and act their characters. Unfortunately I ended up being the murderer so couldn’t take part in the sleuthing, but it was a great evening topped off with karaoke at 1am!
I will definitely look back at 2006 as a year of changes. Moving house was a hard experience, especially as for four months I didn’t know where I was moving to, but looking back now it has definitely been worth it, I am really feeling like the house is now becoming a home. It was also hard to see good friends move on from Cambridge, but at the same time I have met new friends and will hopefully develop just as good friendships in 2007. I am really forward to the year ahead and the ups and downs that will come my way!
