Deer

It seemed bitterly cold all day today: perhaps the pain is a price worth paying if it helps to put you in a suitably festive mood. A friend at work has gone to spend Christmas in Australia. It's just not the same, nibbling turkey sandwiches on the beach. Turkeys, like penguins, belong to polar climates. I guess you could always turn up the air conditioning to make it feel a little more Christmassy. Provided you remembered to bring a portable air conditioning unit with you to the beach.

Whereas here you can revel in the fast-approaching winter solstice, and, as I did yesterday, go for a walk somewhere suitably bleak and desolate late in the afternoon as the sun is beginning to set. It was Tatton Park, which you may not normally think of as either bleak or desolate, but on a cold winter's day, under glowering grey skies, with chill winds whipping up the grim black waters of the mere, and few souls foolhardy enough to venture out, it can seem positively Wuthering Heights-ish. And they shut the gates fairly early, too; which adds to the sense of dread and impending doom as you begin to wonder if you'll be locked in over night, left to survive the elements as best you can, and somehow avoid being devoured by the vast herds of wild and unruly deer.