Flight up: Virgin Blue. Delayed. But good otherwise. Jokes in the safety demonstration meant I listened for the first time in five years. Fellow next to me reading the Hobbit. Fellow across the aisle reading Robert Jordan. My theory regarding the percentage of public reading that is fantasy/sci-fi remains accurate.

Christmas: Family-ridden and enjoyable. I scored a huge pile of reading matter and, most-coveted, Boxing Day tickets to Lord of the Rings. Plus the official movie guide, which I browsed avariciously, increasing my anticipation to a terrible pitch.

Lord of the Rings: Brilliant. Magnificent. Magical. That was it; it put back into the story all the magic that had been present the first time I read it but had subsequently been drowned in pages and pages of grey, bland narrative. But it was there. It was there in Elijah Wood's exquisitely fragile Frodo, who put tears in my eyes on several occasions before the emotion-choking finale. It was there in Orlando Bloom's fantastic Ninja Elf, the Legolas that kicks arse. It was there in Viggo Mortensen's excellent Aragorn, in the delightful hobbits, in the marvellous use of silence in the sound track (which I simply must own) but most of all in Peter Jackson's devotion, dedication, single-minded determination to make this the best movie in the history of everything ever.

You succeeded. Hats off, Mr Jackson.

(Note to this: I went to see the movie again yesterday with Nards and her young man, as their Christmas present, and this time I paid a little more attention, and could tell Merry and Pippin apart easily. Once I'd established the names, their personalities became obvious. Pippin is younger, he's more eager, he's sillier, and always hungry. Merry's a bit grimmer, older, more serious, but obviously devoted to his friends.)

So, that's really what I did on my holidays. How were yours?