I have just returned from spending Christmas on my country estate in Oxfordshire. It was wonderful to see the old place with it’s rolling acres and a tear ran down my cheek as the faithful old butler Soames struggled, bent double under the weight of my luggage but that is, after all what servants are for …

In point of fact I spent a pleasant week with my mum and her partner in the city of my birth, Liverpool. There are, alas no rolling acres, just a small back garden in which my guide dog, Trigger soon made himself at home. On Christmas day we all, as is customary exchanged gifts. Even Trigger and my mum’s black Labrador, Lilley received presents. Not content with his own gift Trigger took it upon himself to eat a box of chocolates which had been left under the Christmas tree as a present for my mum. Not satisfied with the chocolates he enjoyed a tasty desert of … scented candle! Fortunately Trigger suffered no ill effects and he is, as I write sleeping at my feet.

Well I am now back in London and my mum’s dog, Lilley can breathe a sigh of relief as there is no hungry monster lurking in the shadows waiting to deprive her of her dinner!