Lists

MY GOOD LADY IS finalising the list for this year's Christmas dinner at the Pub, and we're struck by how depleted it is, by how many empty chairs at the table there will be.

Somehow the onset of the festive season always lends itself to such ruminations.

Meanwhile, I've been browsing online for some possible holiday reading. On my favourites list is the prequel to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy: Once Upon a Time in the North. I also quite fancy a cookery book by Raymond Blanc - but I'm quite happy to make that a mutual present to each other.

For her part MGL tells me she'll be pleased with a couple of new jigsaws and a box of chocolates - one of her most lovable traits is how easily satisfied she seems to be.

Today, too, I've rung in our wine list for the next few weeks - it would never do, after all, to run dry!

Meanwhile, too, we've started compiling our food list, beginning, naturally, with the turkey...

Seems at times as if our lives are ruled by lists, which I suppose they are - lists for this, for that, for the other. What would we do without them.