Buying Christmas presents online was always going to be risky unless they were ordered well in advance – so not learning from last year I was left printing out pictures of what wasn’t delivered in time and stuffing them into envelopes.

Kim’s present was touch and go and relied upon a chap wandering around the beaches of Whitby looking for small ammonites for my gift of 180 million year old fossilised monkey puzzle tree – a set of whitby jet earrings.

Our Christmas party consisted of an educational trip down a mine at the Newtongrange Mining Museum and lunch on a barge down the Forth/Clyde Union Canal, which was most jolly eating and drinking at a relaxed pace watching the cartoon animals on the bank (for the children’s Santa special), stopped off on a high aqueduct, discussing farting in a cupped hand to throw it at people that annoy you and ended with a rush of double liqueurs to make sure we risked falling in the water getting off the barge.

So with a case of Lebanese Chateau Musar wine procured from Villeneuve Wines we enter the Christmas spirit. Cara did her annual present robbing clearing out any edible ones and the kids manged to return with a 40 pound Noble Fir tree that guarantees that we can’t all fit in the large sitting room at the same time.

Carols from Kings for Christmas on the radio and the god awful Star Wars Christmas on the CD player as Christmas Eve swings into action with friends dropping in and the livestock fed (they love brussel sprout peelings)

Christmas presents included a geiger counter – I appear not to be radioactive, a portable sun dial, juggling breasts and an LCD picture frame.

Supper with the neighbour was a chance to meet a trapeze artiste doing a degree in Circus arts.

My Christmas Newsletter so alarmed friends that even those who hadn’t contacted me for years rushed around or emailed me. We dropped down to Consett to see an old friend, whose drawers I used to urinate into at university. As revenge he took me for a long walk through dark muddy woodland in my MBT’s but compensated by introducing me to marvellous pubs where yet again I managed to accidentally order cider instead of real ale, but then worked my way through the remaining marvellous ales – English pubs have much to commend them. Their identical twin daughters demonstrated worse behaviour than our children which was pretty impressive given our kids history, culminating with them throwing a log at the others head which went through a picture window.

December, the final month of the Gregorian calendar year, known in South Africa as the month of the Mimosa Thorn Tree, whilst pagans in the North move from Litha to Yule, crossing the Winter Solstice. And of course the time of year when religious folk forget about the pagan festival that they steamrolled over with Christmas – but then if there is a reason to agree with Dawkins that religion is such a bad thing the Magdalene Laundries are a fine example.

Scott’s Of Selkirk is a local Borders festival where most of the inhabitants of Selkirk dress up in victorian costumes and offer free mulled wine and mince pies whilst you browse their goods. It is bizarre seeming the juxtapoisiton of an electronic cash machine and a queue of Victorians waiting to use it. By lunchtime I was ready to sing in the choir…. but instead fuelled on sherry I bought books on Myths, Suicide and Castration (Freud). We had coffee at the Selkirk Deli sharing a table with an 86 year old lady who told us she was looking for a man, possibly in the new Tesco, and her friend in a wimple sold us a Scocha CD (her husband is the English chap masquarading as a Scot in a leather kilt) and answered her mobile phone in Victorian garb which buzzed from her matching muffler. Had a tour of Squirrel’s loft and on returning to the Gutbusting casino night, where my strategy of card counting was offset by the dealers shuffling, I picked up a bottle of wine and spiced Westphalia chicken at the BP garage on the A68, which is pretending to be a wine shop (reinforcing Lothian and Borders Police Don’t Drink and Drive policy) with Petit-Chablis and decent clarets. Discovered that one of our fellow GutBusters uses the school bus driver/hypnotist to stop smoking.

December will be Soay’s Choice – where we pick the sheep to be dragged to the abattoir in Galashiels (who recently had a highland bull escaping down the street almost killing an old man). November is normally slaughter month but things are a bit late this year thanks to the warmer weather.

My dog and wife and fallen out – when Kim sits down the dog leaves the room and when she leaves the room Cara returns.

December is very blood thirsty as I wade through movies (Nosferatu, Vampyr, Blacula, Dracula) and books including Dracula’s Guest the unpublished first chapter of Dracula, Carmilla, Dr Polidori’s Vampyr based on Byron’s fragment.

All I want for Christmas is my front tooth – finally my dentist fitted my bridge (in between taking other teeth out from women playing musical chairs in the waiting room). We lunched at the Blue Bell Hotel (which was challenging with half my mouth frozen) and on walking to the car spied a chap in black with a black top hat walking down the middle of the main street in Belford followed by a hearse – it was a most errie and bizarre sight, no following cars, no-one else around.

As flattered as I was that Schmap had chosen my photographs of St Mary’s Church, Whitby, for their tourist guide – I was surprised to see such sloppy research that they used it to represent St Mary’s Church in York (which unless global warming has really changed things is nowhere near the sea shown in the photographs).

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In a microlight (Quicktime VR shot)
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Robert Ashley’s Automatic Writing wins the prize for ‘Least Festive’ music – being about Tourette’s syndrome and sexual abuse (not at the same time).

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Deck the halls with boughs of holly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Tis the season to be jolly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Don we now our gay apparel,
Fa la la, la la la, la la la.
Troll the ancient Yule tide carol,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

See the blazing Yule before us,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Strike the harp and join the chorus.
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Follow me in merry measure,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
While I tell of Yule tide treasure,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Fast away the old year passes,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Hail the new, ye lads and lasses,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Sing we joyous, all together,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Heedless of the wind and weather,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

We set off for the Lake District early one moonlit morning, through the flooded Eden roads (fields looking like paddy fields with rows of trees poking out of the waters where the River Eden had burst its banks), to the Keswick Climbing Wall. After a breakfast of real cornish pasties, where Kim asked if we could have the buy 2 get 2 free offer (we had to point out that it was buy 10 get 2 free – kim must be thinking in binary) we bypassed the Cumberland pencil museum and found the high wall.

We learnt to tie our rope knots and belay then it came for me to abseil down whilst alasdair belayed – I dropped letting go of the wall and rope and Ali received the largest wedgie he had ever had – he was also tied to a barrel to counteract my weight and his lightness. The climbing instructor just asked Ali – How are your Man Bits? All great fun but we had to go, changing into our funeral garb for the funeral of a friend. There was almost more funerals as Kim hit a patch of deep water across the road, squealed but fortunately the audi patents paid off with computer controlled 4 wheel drive keeping us on the road.

The Jesus church at Troutbeck is set in a most gorgeous valley at the head of Kirkstone Pass, and the church itself is stunning with oak beams and a fantastic stained glass window. A wren was flying around in the church adding a sense of magic to the occasion, along with the dead fox that we parked beside. Music by Catriona McKay played by the celtic band from Kelso High School, was a haunting celtic refrain which with the surroundings made for a phenomenal experience. We threw our soil or scattered petals in the grave and in the rain made our way back to the car when the most gorgeous rainbow appeared apparently terminating in the graveyard and arcing to the town where luncheon was served.

Hymns sung included the pagan fertility carol – The Holly and the Ivy albeit with Christian words tagged on clumsily, and the rather bizarre All Things Bright and Beautiful with the ‘Purple Headed Mountains’ from Martin Shaw’s 17th Century ‘Royal Oak’. At least the Lord’s Prayer was the original one without this ‘Time Of Trial’ nonsense.

We returned over the Kirkstone Pass with very little fuel, not a great place to breakdown, and saw an overflowing lake (overflowing onto the road). We passed through Hawick high street to see the Christmas lights – which are second hand from Monte Carlo.