Its the Christmas season, so lots of invites to different Christmas meals have been had.

10 days ago was the Explorer County Forum meal at Pizza Hut in Preston, under the guise of a Christmas meal it also served as a leaving celebration for Ray who as of January will no longer be ACC. I think everybody will miss him a lot, I've known him for a good few years now and have a lot of respect for the man, he's up there with some of the people who have made big impacts on my life. Taking his place is Hugh Miller, very cool guy, former District Explorer Scout Leader. This means he'll no longer be an Ormskirkian (Well not in the scouting sense anybody, but he knows where he belongs at heart!), I think Hugh is a really good choice for the ACC, he should do the job very well.

Unfortunately the meal was quite brief, for two main reasons. The first being that Steph who was driving for the evening was pretty late in picking myself and Hugh, something to do with not being able to decide what to wear...! Once we arrived aswell we were told that the restaurant was closing by 9pm so we had to be finished quick. Ormskirk had a strong prescence at the meal with probably about 2/3rds of the attendees coming from the district! Meal was pretty good, gave Raymond a guard of honour on the way out before parting ways. Stopped for the tradtional KFC on the way back despite just having pizza.

Two day's later was our units meal in 'Don Alberto's', a slightely mroe up-market, when comparied with Pizza Hut Italien in the village. Most of the unit was there with the addition of a few guests, Hugh and Dick. Food was very good, even better was the atmosphere the unit created. This was unfortunately another leaving do, we lost Gemma before the summer which was dissopointing and know Chris had decided its his time to leave. Respect to him though, hes been a leader for a long time and done some good stuff with us. He does promise to come and help when needed, which is some concelation. Helen & Dick are away for most of January so that means we now need to find somebody to be a temporary leader!

Walked (hobbled) home with Helen & Dick, via Ken and Chris' who had just arrived back from holiday. Ken didn't even want to ask what I'd done to my leg, hes seen most of the injusries i've done of the last decade, many!

Tuesday was an explorer scout forum, David brought cake, which was good. Not much else happened, talked over the formal ball, a bit low on numbers but it should still do ahead. Home via the ship to crash a Gathering meeting and cheekily ask Ricko could I come to the unit meal tomarrow - sucess!

This last wednesday was the Eclipse Christmas meal, I'm not an actual member of Eclipse but used to attend quite requarely to see people and have got into the habit of going to the Christmas meals which are usually at the cafe bar and a fantastic doo. Venue changed with year to 'The Italien' in Burscough, good thing being it was a bit closer for me to get there. Sat with Lewis and disscussed many a thing, good to catch up as we haven't had time to do that for a while. Food was reasonable, company was good as ever. Eventually most of the folk left bar myself, Lewis, Nige, Leigh, Lucy, Steph and Liz who engorsed themselves in the delights of deserve, a muchness of chocolate orange borwnies, and chocolate fondue! Very good. Swindled a lift home from Steph (thanks for that) and then attempted to beat Lewis on my drive with crutches.

So effectively my life over the last week has been eating, sleeping and occasionally going to college. You best interperse with that though numerous trips to Physiotherapists, GPs and Knee Specialists. Saw a doctor on friday and his verdict is that unless my knee dramatically improves over the next two weeks I may need key-hole surgery in January. Not had any surgery before... will be a new experience, possibly one I don't want though! Good news is there won't be any lasting damage though!