– I woke up to find that InfantPhenomenon had not after all thrown over BikingLad in order to marry Gordon Brown and

– I spent a couple of hours in the sunshine playing with my garden whilst listening to podcasts of In Our Time – (I’m partial to a bit of Melvyn) and

– I now know very slightly more than nothing about Classical Humanism (it was Roman) and the Medici family (they were Italian) and

– I’ve made a small impact on the jungle we inherited but still lots to get my teeth into and

– I wore my new fingerless gloves what Ma made me for Christmas and

– drank coffee from my new thermal mug what Secret Santa gave me and

– ate a toastie from the toastie-maker what Mrs Castle gave me and

– I’ve got a rather good detective novel on the go and

– Ma wasn’t too traumatised by receiving fourteen garden gnomes for her birthday and

– Pa said at least it would be someone to talk to and

– we’ve managed to rearrange the bungalow to  squeeze in Young Lochinvar and Ms Tintin while they look for alternative digs – preferably somewhere that doesn’t give you an electric shock when you turn on the light and

– there’s still a week of the Christmas holiday left and – Oh joy unconfined!  Verily rejoice! –

– there’s a whole year before we have to do any more Christmas shopping.

Mind you, the 99p shop is already selling Creme Eggs.