Greetings from the Depths of Sunny New Mexico

Well. Well, well, I can't believe that it is once more time, (actually past time) for that eminently practical American invention, the Christmas Newsletter. For those of you in foreign climes it will be more like the belated new Year Newsletter, but as they say, better late than never.

Jack and I love New Mexico, and we love the bolshy, feisty, corrupt little county we live in, and the gentle citizens of this same county. In many ways Mora County is still living in the 19th century - the old Spanish "patron" system is dying out but not dead yet, and corruption is just a necessary part of life. We know nearly all the elected officers and county employees personally, the Judge is a genial old fox with a great line in bullshit and the local sheriff runs one of the local bars. This means that efforts to curb drunk driving in Mora are never going to be very successful. The Sheriff is a very nice chap and his wife is lovely, and they actually run the cleanest, friendliest bar in Mora, and probably in the whole state. The people are delightful, kind, hospitable and friendly, and most of the people we know enjoy a beer or six on a regular basis. I did a 3 month project for the DWI (Driving While Intoxicated) Council here, working on the files in the Magistrate Court to enter the old DWI convictions into the database. It was just about the first job I was sorry to finish, and they were sorry to lose me. I am also a member of the DWI council, and good friends with the DWI coordinator who in fact was the one who got me the project. We have made lots of friends and acquaintances, and everyone knows our business and what we have been up to before we have been up to it. Sure saves repeating ourselves when we meet people.

The air and water here are obviously very beneficial to health and happiness and well being, because I'm just entering my fifth month of pregnancy. The first trimester was very difficult with continuous spotting and heavy bleeding a couple of times, but at 12 weeks all that stopped and I have been doing very well ever since. My medical care has been first rate and I have been monitored very carefully. The blood screenings have put my risk factors for a defective fetus at acceptably low so I do not need to have an amniocentesis, which I am very happy about. The baby seems to be strong and healthy and growing exactly on schedule, and if all goes well I should deliver sometime around May 27. I am paying careful attention to my diet and taking all my vitamin pills, and keeping the beers down to about one a week, and so far I have put on very little weight, which is pleasing. We have not really thought about names yet, that will probably wait until we find out what sex it is.

The pending arrival is forcing us to get back onto our original track of working on the house, after all the adventures with horses, stables, hitching posts and broken bones over the spring and summer, so with a lot of help from a friend of ours, Jack just replumbed the kitchen and put in a new tap (faucet) for me. The old piping was amazing, a creative veritable jigsaw of pipes, with archaeological layers of pipes from previous systems kind of tangled in. Just removing all this stuff was quite a challenge. With the new plumbing it is actually possible to get into the basement while standing upright, which makes it easier to put in the new gas pipe so that I can have a stove (at the moment I am still cooking on the little 2 burner camp stove that sits on top of the disconnected wood cookstove) and also finally get to use the brand new gas dryer that is still sitting down in the basement in its box, unopened. After that, the re-wiring, which without question will be the biggest and trickiest job, as we cannot just turn it off for a month while we rewire. After that finding somewhere to site the baby's bed…….. We are going to be busy!!! (Among all these activities Jack still has to find time to design web pages and sell space to customers on our web sites).

Weatherwise, it is very rare to have an overcast day here. Usually the sky is brilliant blue and the sun just radiant, although the actual temperatures vary a lot. Last winter and spring was incredibly windy, but so far this winter we have had only a few windy days. It has got a lot colder in the last week, hardly surprising, but the mild temperatures held right up to then. The woodburning stove does a lovely job of pumping out the heat, but unfortunately the air circulation around the house is so poor the heat all stays in the living room, which defeats the purpose of having the big stove. As it is currently the only source of heat in the house some rethinking of the heating system is definitely required.