Have yourselves a Merry little Christmas

This is my annual picture of what the front garden looks like but I promise this is not a recycled photo; it took it on Saturday .

exactly one week before Christmas. Who knows where we shall all be by then? Our own plans all involve driving: Winchester, Eastleigh, Eastbourne, Henfield then back here, so everything depends on the snow and the roads in Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Sussex.

But these are minor problems compared with families stranded at Heathrow and other airports or people in Scotland who have had it like this for weeks and are running out of oil.

If it looks too bad, we won't travel on 22nd (our Wedding Anniversary) but will hibernate here with log fires, cats reprieved from cattery, and the two crackers left over from last Christmas! There's plenty of food in the freezer, logs in the woodstore and wine in the garage.

And we have books! Boy, do we have books! I hope you do too, wherever you are and however improvised your Christmas ends up being. May your Amazon parcels arrive on time, may you make it to your local indy and cheer up their seasonal; sales figures, and if you have an e-reader I hope it has been well-laden with titles before you travel.

A very happy Christmas to all my followers, fellow-bloggers, writers and readers everywhere.

And to the Scrooges who want to close our libraries, may your baubles drop off!