By this time the grannies were a little tipsy and I must still be as I can't get rid of this line.....

Grandson was groaning at the traditionally awful cracker joke.

I'll never make a wildlife photographer. The birds are so timid they seem to know when I'm looking at them even when I'm behind double glazing and sitting really still, but I do like trying.

After three Christmas Concerts, several trips into the Big(er) Town for pressies, and four trips to the Post Office with parcels, I still hadn't really got the Christmas spirit until this morning when I gave the birds their breakfast and sat watching them enjoying their peanuts. Suddenly I felt all warm, full of goodwill and in a mood to enjoy being with people - in short I felt how we're supposed to feel, Christian, Pagan, pantheist or whatever, on this mid-winter festival day.

It may have had something to do with not being responsible for the cooking.

Thrilling nws of union!!

Oh my goodness! While I've been in limbo the others thave been getting out and about, taking beautiful photos and, in one case Getting MARIED!!!!! Congratulations Gillian and your very fortunate DJ. He's got himself a Good Woman. I'm thrilled.

Home at last.

This sequence does something to mark the progress of the last month - good grief is it that long since I moved? The house seemed totally sterile and Trust House Forte to begin with,with its new floor and nw paint and the aura of the last obsessively clean occupant (my daughter) but when the spice cupboard (it has been with me since I got married in 1966) arrived things started to improve and now there is even sluts wool under the bed. I feel much more at home! The horrible week of snow, during which I couldn't see my car, only its snowcar form on the front parking, also had an odd way of grounding me - birds arrivd in flocks for the nuts and crumbs offered, and, let's face it, I was VERY pleased to be completely warm and completely alone once I got home instead of a bit chilly in a drafty flat above the shop! I have ordered half-curtains so I shan't be able to see the boring rooftops and discovered that the neighbours are all very nice. Things have therefore improved in my world. I think I'm back!