Happy New Year! It isn’t everyone who can say they have lived through two millenniums, must be why I am looking so old. There has been a mad build up to the event: up till Tuesday there were sheep everywhere, being led home on a rope, carried over shoulders or fastened onto the roof rack of line taxis. Tuesday was New Years Eve and there were big parties in Addis – maybe you saw it on the news? It was on BBC World Service, concerts, fireworks and speeches by dear Meles. Wednesday, the sheep were heard bleating in yards or seen tied to gate posts having their last suppers. This was New Years Day but Wednesday and Friday are fasting days for Orthodox Christians so the great meat eating fest was postoned to today. Today, I expect the streets will be running with blood and there will be the usual heads and horns strewn around. Mike said there were piles of fleeces at the side of the road when he went out. 400 birr for a sheep - apparently things have never been so expensive here. That’s about the monthly pay of the lowest paid teacher.

We were invited round to a neighbours yesterday – really they wanted to invite us today and don’t seem to be able to cope with the fact that we don’t eat meat. Belete keeps saying ‘But I really wish you ate meat’ and looks really sad! It was great anyway, injera and misir wat (spicy lentil dish), special New Year bread (cooked in a kind of water oven) and the usual fab coffee ceremony. We stayed for the full three rounds (it is traditional to have three brews of coffee) and watched some TV with them – lots of the partying in Addis and the fireworks.

We found out on Tuesday that the government had declared Thursday and Friday national holidays – bit last minute, didn’t they know the millennium was coming??? So we are confined to home. Fortunately, on Tuesday I got the books for my next OU course. Some of it is a bit easy – stuff I remember well, but there is also a lot of more applied maths which looks interesting. Don’t laugh. And mathcad – anyone used it? Seems quite straightforward. Got some good video stuff too about applications of maths. So it should keep me busy for a while. Thanks to my friend in the Royal Mail for getting it to me so quickly.

Last night we started watching 24. Wow, anyone seen it? I said at the start that we would only watch one episode but it was so good I’m afraid we watched the first 4. Brilliant.