December 2004

I am deep into a new book for children - not a picture book this time, but a story for 8-12 year olds. My god-children love their stories, and as they get older, so must the things I invent to amuse them. Still, it amuses me, so it's a pretty good deal.

Are you tired? I am. I am hoping that as the book continues, it will revive me, because doing real work has an energetic benefit. Although the daily word-count is tiring, the act of writing is invigorating, and seems to prompt renewal at a cellular level.

The most tiring thing I ever do is journalism, because it doesn't close the circuit. I give out but I don't take back. I've been doing a lot of it recently, and although I really do enjoy it, and take a lot of trouble over it, I feel it gradually becoming a burden, which is a sure sign to give it a break for a while. It may be that the frenetic pace of newspaper life is so fundamentally at odds with the contemplative pace of the work I really do, that after the thrill of change is past, the short-circuiting starts.

Still there are various bits of journalism on the site this month, including, at last, the interview with Philip Pullman in the December issue of Harpers and Queen (UK), which you can buy if you can bear to look at the talentless Gwen Stefani on the front cover.

Philip Pullman's new book, The Scarecrow and his Servant, is a great story about a scarecrow who comes to life and sets off on a series of adventures with his faithful human servant, Jack. I would recommend it as a Christmas buy this year, because of course, the adults will enjoy reading it too, and you can curl up for Christmas on the sofa with your little loved one, and read it all the way through.

The kids are coming to stay next week to decorate the house. We don't have a Christmas tree indoors - we hang our angels and snowman and Santas on hooks from the beams and over the doors, so that the place ends up looking like a Greek shrine. I am going to try and light the garden this year, but that is because I have got Inflatable Santa Envy.

When you leave behind my pretty sleepy village and drive up to the by-pass, there is a row of houses that competes for the most astonishing outdoor decorations - snowmen running up and down flashing ladders, reindeer taking off over the satellite dishes, light-up four feet tall gnomes throwing illuminated snowballs - that sort of thing.

I drive up and down this road nearly every night, mesmerised by the electrical output. I don't even know where they buy these marvels, let alone how they get them half way up their bungalows.

The kids will think nothing of me if I don't make an effort, so at least I can do something in my wood, though I fear it will be white fairy lights. Indoors, I still think the best thing is candles everywhere. I love to light the whole house that way, and roar up the fires, then go and stand down in the dark and look back at it

I am doing what I always do at this time of year; listening to Handel's Messiah and reading Dickens, A Christmas Carol. I love the music, I love the writing, and it puts me in the right mood for wrapping presents - in newspaper, because there is too much waste at Christmas.

And too much waistline. We are all getting fatter. Well, I'm not, but that is because I am too vain, and also a Virgo. 

A staggering 61% of Americans are overweight - 35% of Brits, and only 10% of French people. If you want to read a really scary book as you stuff yourself with chocolates this Xmas, go for FAT LAND by Greg Critser. It is terrifying. If current trends continue, ALL Americans will be overweight by 2050. And probably most Brits too, so the French may yet inherit the world after all, because the rest of us will be too fat to do anything about it.

I will be 91 by then, and drinking champagne before lunch, which is what I have promised myself for my 90th birthday and every day after that.

It depresses me when people claim they can't afford good food - that is, food produced in harmony with nature, and without exploiting the workforce. In the West, most of us can afford to eat less and eat better. We are consuming about a third more calories than we need, and what we eat is bad for us. The cheap food mantra will have to go, because there is no such thing as cheap food; the hidden costs of what we eat are in our bloated unhealthy bodies, and our degraded environment. 

My aim this Christmas is to eat simply and eat well. It will be fish pie on Xmas Eve, then wild game, with vegetables from the garden on Xmas Day. On Boxing Day, we'll have wild organic smoked salmon, smoked in the summer when wild salmon was in season, and a bitter salad of winter leaves, like chicory and endive. I am making my own cheese straws and my own Oat Thins to eat with unpasteurised Cheddar. I made a Christmas pudding the old fashioned way, in the summer, with summer fruit soaked in the kind of brandy tractors can run on.

It takes a bit of time and a bit of planning, but there's not an E number nor an additive in sight, and although everything is of the best quality, I'll wager I'll spend less than the mad run round the supermarket for a mound of pre-packed Xmas 'treats'.

Meanwhile, I must do some Christmas shopping. My girlfriend gave me her list last week, which read: PURPLE WELLINGTONS. NEW CARDIGAN. BIRD OF PREY. MOPED.

Which, if any of these, will I buy? I am hoping she will go to the Sotheby's sale and buy me a copy of John Donne's Sermons. I love those sermons, and I would like an early copy. I'll let you know if I get one.

Peace on Earth? I hope so. It's worth praying for, whoever is your god, or no god at all. In December I like to walk up to the ancient church in the village and read the lesson for the day and sit quietly and focus on the world and try and wrap it in light.

Add your light to the sum of light. We can do that meditatively, and we can work practically for a better world in whatever way each of us can. Whatever we do, however small, can make a difference.

Love to you and yours wherever you are this Christmas.