The disappointments were much more when I was growing up emotionally, finding that happiness is fickle and pain so inflexible. That sex is just a consolation for not having love. The recurring disappointments of 'Ah... I thought he was “the one'.

However, paradoxically it also gave me the ability to never forget one thing in life, and that is my belief in miracles. I realised over the years that miracles have a strange way of coming into reality only when one trusts in their possibility. Miracle is akin to faith.
Faith that breaks a heart, in order to make it whole.

As a child, I was repeatedly told about the story of Abraham in the Holy Book, and how faith surpasses all doubts. When Abraham was asked to make a sacrifice to prove his love for God, he walked into the woods with his little son to make an offering. His son asked him where the lamb is, and he answered that God will provide the lamb. He had undeterred faith, even when he held the knife aloft over his only child... he believed that God would provide the lamb in place of his child!

Let me confess, I don’t have this kind of unshakeable faith in miracles. I am too chicken-hearted to hold a knife over my own child!

For me...

Miracle is when I look outside the window at the icy branches, and believe that there are new leaves under the mounds of snow, sleeping under those tiny nodes, and that they will unfurl when the spring comes. Miracle is that new promise in the crisp and scented air, that no matter how harsh the winter, the sun will come out. Miracle is when a ‘red-eyed’ day suddenly changes into a ‘red letter’ day. Miracle is a hurt healed by a kiss!

Miracle is Christmas, when every child gets up with unshaken faith that there are gifts, underneath that tree glittering in the corner.

Miracle is the faith in gifts! Gifts that come as a surprise. Gifts that are tied with heartstrings. Gifts that are not tangible or materialistic but are priceless! Gifts that say a thousand words. Words that are given as gifts. Gifts that turn a mundane life into a miraculous one. Gifts of unconditional love. Comfort. Hope. Acceptance.

Hopeless romantic that I am, I can find miracles even in the changing season. And I believe that the biggest miracle of all is that ‘Nothing Lasts Forever!’ Yes, if not love, then also not heartbreak. If not spring, then also not winter. Miracle is not giving up on loving and caring, no matter how may times the heart breaks.

Because what we call miracle, God calls love.

Someone once wrote me these beautiful lines. Here it is: 'Love is a gift. If you receive it, try to appreciate it. If not, don’t worry. Someone is still wrapping it for you.'

On the coast of the far north-east of England, not far from the border with Scotland, is a pretty fishing village on a quiet harbour called Seahouses.

From Seahouses you can take a boat to the Farnes, a rugged group of islands in the North Sea which is home to countless birds, among which the tens of thousands of puffins are a must-see attraction.

The title 'clowns of the sea' ascribed to the puffin, on account of its outsize orange beak, does not do these unlikely birds justice.

Birds are often beautiful, graceful and elegant, but rarely cute in the way our favourite mammals are. The puffin is an exception. With its sleek dinner jacket plumage, tubby body and striking oversized beak, the puffin cuts an ungainly and endearing figure.

It is possible to get almost within touching distance before they register the intrusion, scamper off and dive into a burrow.

Among each other, they seem sociable sorts as they hop around rocks and potter about the greenery. The quick-fire clashing of beaks, which appears to be a duel, is in fact a courtship ritual. Puffins, like albatrosses, mate for life. Pairs that have trouble breeding are known to 'divorce' though. All this is so much anthropomorhising of course, but that's only human, and half the fun.

It’s not all puffins though: several other unusual birds can be found nesting on the Farnes including terns, guillemots, kittiwakes, eider ducks and cormorants. To get the best bird-life experience the time to visit is the breeding season - between May and July, the English summer.

Three operators run boat trips out of Seahouses. We sailed with Billy Shiel, who was awarded an MBE for services to tourism in Northumberland in 1997. His family has been operating tours to the Farne islands since 1918. You can call ahead, or just walk up to the kiosk on Seahouses harbour.

The cost is £12 pounds for the boat trip and, if you want to walk around Inner Farne island, another £5.60 paid upon landing to the National Trust, which maintains the wildlife sanctuary. Landings are weather and tide-dependent, on the skipper’s discretion. It’s worth the £12 even if you can’t land - plenty of bird life can be spotted in the air, on the sea and on the guano-encrusted crags of the islands’ cliff-faces. Atlantic grey seals loll on the rocks. In winter, when tours still operate, you can spot seal pups. Little of this fascinating wildlife, including the puffins, can be seen from the mainland.

History buffs and anyone who likes an old church will also enjoy the little church dedicated to St Cuthbert, who died on Inner Farne. Famed in the region as a miracle worker, a cult developed around the monk after his body was found uncorrupt after he had been dead 418 years. The Pele Tower, built in 1540, housed monks who sought solitude on the island. It now houses the National Trust wardens who look after the island and its wildlife.

Billy Shiel’s Farne Islands Boat Trips: http://www.farne-islands.com

Seahouses Community Website: http://www.seahouses.org/

This is fertile ground for an author like Tim Moore. Previous books have seen him following the footsteps of the first Grand Tourist, the fortunes of Eurovision failures and the tyre tracks of the Tour de France. For Tim Moore, the world of re-enactments is a field just waiting to be harvested.

And what a strange world it is, where nothing is what it seems and everything is what it was. Enthusiasts drench their clothing in urine, mild-mannered coin collectors morph into bloodthirsty warriors, and everyone craves the magical fusion of past and present, a sensation known as "period rush".

Early on, Moore learns that authenticity is the Holy Grail of historical re-enactment. But authenticity, it seems, is an elastic concept. At one extreme, he shares supermarket burgers with an Iron Age blacksmith, at the other he spends time with an 18th-century retromaniac who extracts his own teeth.

Moore draws the line at home dentistry, but he does go to extraordinary lengths to recreate the past. During one memorable tableau, he's to be found coating his sandals with curried potato salad for that 'just back from ancient Rome' look. Unfortunately, his preparations have a 'just back from Wikipedia' feel about them. With one foot in the past and the other in his mouth, Moore blunders across the centuries like Mr Magoo on a skateboard.

Things start badly as he spends a solitary night in an Iron Age theme park with only a flock of savage sheep for company. Period rush is momentarily ignited with his first attempt at making fire from flint and straw. But his experiences among the Romans, Vikings, Tudors and American Civil War re-enactors only serve to confirm that Tim Moore's time is now.

As a newcomer, he's keen to discover why thousands of people regularly immerse themselves in the past. For many, it's an escape from the daily grind and a chance to rediscover the lost art of repairing things. It's hard to see the appeal of re-enactments for women. Mostly tagging along with their husbands, they're usually consigned to supporting roles as cooks or serving wenches. But for the men, the attractions are clearer. Re-enactments offer 21st-century boys the chance to jettison all pretence of political correctness and to wallow in fighting, filth and flatulence.

It's not long before Moore himself is seduced by this outpouring of testosterone. As a Roman soldier, he sets about kicking Gaulish ass. He joins a company of full contact Vikings whose battle cry is "we maim to please". Later, with whoops of boyish delight he fires Krakatoan volleys from a 15th-century canon in an Alsatian castle. He's discomfited, however, to find himself among American Civil War re-enactors, most of whom believe the wrong side won.

Airports are a hacker's dream come true: loads of people, especially business travelers, using laptops containing valuable information to connect to the Internet. One common scheme hackers use to catch unsuspecting airport Internet users is to create free ad-hoc wireless networks that look legit, but are actually traps that allow hackers to view what travelers are doing online and steal any information sent, including passwords and credit card numbers. Hackers can also plant spyware on a computer and turn it into a "slave" that sends spam to other computers.

Here are few steps you can take to avoid these scammers:

• Before you leave for the airport, check your computer's network connections settings and make sure it is set up to not automatically connect to any available network. If it is, your computer could connect to a hacker network on its own, before you even notice. Turn off any file-sharing features, too.
• Once you're at the airport and have your computer turned on, go to your network connections and carefully look at the list of available wireless networks. Some may have legitimate sounding names like "Free Airport Wi-Fi" or even something like "Secure LAX Network," but check the little icon placed before the network name before you connect. If it shows two computers sending signals to each other, it means it's a computer-to-computer ad hoc network, very likely set up by a nearby hacker who's broadcasting a wireless signal from his or her computer. It's a safe bet to not connect to any computer-to-computer network.
• When you're online, avoid using your credit card or doing any other task involving sensitive information. Once you're finished using the Internet, manually disconnect from your wireless connection.

Do you have any pointers for avoiding getting hacked while on the road? Share your tips below.

If anyone has reason to feel glum, certainly it would be the men of the Gay Men's Choir of Los Angeles. Yet their show, It's a Fabulous Life: Holiday Songs in the Key of Life, which opens their 30th anniversary season, is funny, touching, and, as one would expect, a touch campy.

For one weekend only, Dec. 20-21, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, the two-hour show includes a few personal stories interspersed throughout musical numbers and some short dance numbers.

The show opens with Joy to the World and Santa Claus Llego a la Cuidad but also includes Kislev Cowboys — a mildly sexual-innuendo filled song based on "My Dreydl" with choreography by Billy Rugh, featuring Arron Rothbart and a few cowboys: Rod Andrada, Christopher Durbin, Chris Etscheid, Bill Gallimore, Jay Krift, Michael Lehman, Santo Ragno, Billy Rugh, Andrew Thomas, and Jacob Young. Yet the sexual content is less than you might find in sitcoms like the old Fran Drescher series The Nanny. This is definitely family-friendly fare.

The first holiday remembrance (Greg Knotts) is about teddy bears and explaining to a child (in this case a four-year-old nephew) about gay coupledom — "It's about love." That's the central theme returned to over and over. One of the most touching moments is just before the rendition of Silent Night. An attorney (John Duran) for Act Up remembers how angry he was with those people who called AIDS "God's Wrath" during the 1980s and yet learned that instead of facing people with hate and anger, perhaps he should see love — as in the love of some people and some churches for people — no matter what their sexual preference.

The first act ends with I Wanna Be a Rockette and the Parade of the Wooden Soldiers. Featuring Shawn Ingram, with choreography by Bill Rugh, it even has some cross-dressing faux Rockettes.

The second act includes an arrangement of the Skaters Waltz and Xanadu. Instead of ice skaters, this number featured roller blade skaters: Andrew Thomas and Peter Wilson for the waltz and Rod Andrada, Bernie Espinosa, Christ Etscheid, Bill Gallimore, Shawn Ingram, Michael Kelly, Aaron Millis, Jason Ralicki, Ben Westbrook and Jacob Young for Xanadu.

The last remembrance is from Hoa Le. Born in Vietnam and having moved to Belgium as a refugee, he recalls how, as a Buddhist, he found comfort in celebrating Christmas in his new country by recognizing that love is universal and even Buddha would not frown upon him enjoying the fellowship extended to him by his Christian neighbors.

Like Le, I am not Christian, but I do believe in God, and that the true meaning of Christmas is about love and celebrating the common bonds of humankind.

The Gay Men's Choir of Los Angeles will be performing two numbers at 8:25 p.m. (Santa Claus Llego a la Cuidad and Are You Burning Little Candle as part of the Music Center's free holiday concerts on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24.

Budget airline Virgin Blue announced on Christmas Eve it would slash fuel surcharges for trans-Tasman and Pacific Island flights, a lead Air New Zealand is reluctant to follow.

Only last month, Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe said that to recover the full cost of jet fuel, airfares needed to rise 20 per cent, not fall. But with crude oil below US$40 a barrel and the carrier's backyard routes under siege from low-cost rivals, Mr Fyfe's arm could yet be twisted.

A spokesman for the airline said: "Air New Zealand has been continually reducing airfares during the past three months."

In the buildup to Christmas the airline again reduced Tasman fares by between $10 and $20 and smart saver and flexi saver fares on domestic jet services by $3.

And across the rest of the network it has dramatically increased the number of lowest available fares, including doubling the number of cheapest fares on New Zealand domestic services.

Its fares may yet be chopped further after Pacific Blue fired another shot in the domestic airline war by reducing the fuel surcharge on all trans-Tasman and island flights.

Reaffirming Pacific Blue's commitment to "keeping the air fair", chief executive Brett Godfrey revealed the fuel surcharge on one-way flights would be cut by $10 to $25 from tomorrow.

"We are reluctant to increase the cost of air travel, but those record high jet fuel prices this year forced us along with airlines around the world to introduce a levy to cover those costs," he said.

"We base our decisions on fuel surcharges on a floating average not the spot price and now we have seen a consistent reduction in that it is only fair and right to pass those savings on to our customers."

Air New Zealand this morning embarks on the world's first commercial flight powered by a second generation biofuel.

However, the company said it would be several years at least before biofuel became a commercial reality.

Airline staff are working around the clock to reunite travellers with about 750 suitcases, bags and backpacks that have piled up at international terminals in Sydney and Melbourne, one affected family said.

The airline did not confirm the number of lost bags.

However, a spokesman said a technical issue in the cargo hold of a Boeing 747-400 flying from Los Angeles to Melbourne led to all baggage being loaded on to the next available flights.

The Quinns were told a suitcase full of Christmas gifts for their two young children had gone missing between London and Sydney when they arrived on Saturday night.

Sue Quinn said airline staff told her on Sunday that theirs was one of about 250 items without owners.

And when she called again this morning the tally had risen to 750. A fault with the baggage handling system in Los Angeles was partly to blame, Mrs Quinn was told.

"Santa had hid his pressies in my bag and I don't know whether to go shopping and start again or wait for them to tell us if we'll get our bags back this side of Christmas," she said.

Luckily, the missing suitcase turned up this morning, just as she was heading in to town.

But it took 36 hours of nervous waiting to find out whether she needed to start from scratch on Santa sacks for Ruby, 7, and Ben, 4.

"There are about a dozen presents, a couple of MP3 players and CDs plus stuff that can't be replaced because the kids have made things for their grandparents," she said.

"Half the luggage on a number of flights out of LA to Sydney has been left behind," Mrs Quinn said.

It’s the case in our household as well.

There was a lot more parental consternation when my older child first went away to college three years ago. (Note to daughter: it has nothing to do with who loves who more.) He was, after all, blazing a trail of independence to which my husband and I were unaccustomed. While our children’s lives were by no means privileged, they enjoyed a reasonable buffer from the harsher realities of life, and there was more than the usual amount of parental anxiety on our part. In addition, my son was moving more than 2,000 miles away to a big city where he knew no one, and the nearest relative was an all-day car trip to the south. My husband and I shed many tears that summer, for many different reasons.

The ensuing silence was deafening that fall, and it wasn’t just because of a serious lack of piano pounding in the house. The back and forth bickering and sniping between the siblings was absent. We were missing a place at the table, and “Forced Family Fun” nights were not the same without my son’s input on the chosen movie or my terrible choice of Scrabble words.

My son came home for Christmas the first year and reconnected with his friends and teachers. The second year he chose to stay in San Francisco. He had friends there now and things to do. That’s when the depression set in for me. I had to face the fact that the kid was no longer a child, but an adult with a mind of his own.

My children may be similar in many ways, but they are not two peas in a pod. Instead they are two contrasting jewels, each with separate and distinct temperaments, talents and foibles. I’m the last person who thinks they should be the same or be treated the same.

Fast forward three years, and the younger child makes her escape to college. By this time, I was ready to reclaim my house. I had my fill of three years of elaborate plans, incessant chatter about her future and plenty of high drama thrown in for good measure. My daughter also chose a college on the Left Coast, in southern California. I was pleased for her many achievements, I was happy that she was going where she wanted to be, but looking forward to peace and quiet.