Well, we're almost there and even an unrepentant old misery guts like myself is managing to find some festive joy. I love to see all the christmas trees going up in the houses around us and I like the fact that a lot of homes now have lights on the outside as well. In my view it is impossible to go over-the-top decoration wise (although a local bungalow with its faux chimney stack adorned by an animated santa does push the envelope a little - said santa is too thin and too fast up the stack).

Our house smells like a pine forest which is lovely (especially as a dog owner it masks the smell of wet canine) and we seem to have managed to find a breed of tree that doesn't drop its needles just in time for Christmas Eve (although I sort of miss that tiny tinkling sound of needle on wrapping paper!)

So here I am with the rain banging off the conservatory roof, nibbling my first mince pie of the season (that I have made - I have already eaten quite a few from various shops and can report that our local baker is the clear winner; Sainsburys was ok and Tescos very dissapointing) and I am happy. It's not something that I do very often but even miserable buggers get happy sometimes- just so's the next time you have a black day you have something to compare it too.

I have bought everything that needs to be bought ( and a good deal else that we didn't need) and wrapped the presents for the family - the children's gifts need wrapping but now the boys go to bed later than me, finding a good time to wrap is challenging! I suspect I may need to get up at about 5am or something as there is no chance of encountering the kids at that time of the morning -especially during the holidays.

The white Christmas isn't going to happen it seems - all through my childhood I used to watch the weather forecasts with hope in December - waiting for that strange white-grey sky that presaged snow fall. I don't remember that many white Christmases at all and I do remember some very wet and mild ones, but it does seem undeniable that this has been an oddly warm winter thus far. There is lots of buds on the shrubs in the garden and the bulbs seem to be coming up rather early. A decorative crab apple tree in a garden near by had blossom on it in the last week of November. Snow is not necessarily regular in this part of the UK but I hope that Global warming doesn't mean that mine is the last generation that will regard snow as a fairly normal part of the winter weather.