I'd like to wish all my readers a very merry Christmas. Naturally, I hope your Christmas is full of delicious things to eat as well as happy times with friends and family. I for one have started my day with a delicious bowl of pear and cranberry baked oatmeal and a cup of spiced Christmas tea. There's a huge, majestic rib of beef sitting proudly on the worktop waiting to come to room temperate before it goes into a searing oven; there's smoked salmon in the fridge, to be eaten with butter, horseradish and soda bread; there are mini sausage rolls waiting to puff up and go gloriously golden in the oven, mulled wine to sip around the fire, and - of course - a huge array of vegetables waiting to be peeled. I'd better go and get back to the kitchen.

I leave you with a festive picture of my cat in the snow. It's not snowing here, just doing that standard British grey drizzle thing, so I thought I'd bring a little feline-based snowy joy into your lives.

Merry Christmas!