Ah, winter.

The clocks have gone back, so I got an extra hour’s sleep and still got up at half past nine this morning, the sky is blue, the trees are brown and, best of all, the Blue and Great Tits have started coming to the office window, pecking at the stone frame and waiting to be given food. Winter is definitely on its way. It can, dear reader, only be a good and wholesome thing.

Of course there are downsides to the changing of the seasons. For one thing it means that we’re more likely to receive visitations from that cute – but not at five in the morning – pest, Mus musculus, who, if you will recall, paid us such a startlingly unwelcome visit last year that we ended up sleeping downstairs for three days whilst we caught the bugger, who turned out to be the rodent equivalent of Steve McQueen. For another thing it means that our electricity bill will rocket upwards with a recklessness that would scare even the hardiest of residents, as we try to keep the house warm with only one (possibly two if I ever get round to purchasing another) electric radiator. I think that a lot of woolly jumpers will be coming out of the wardrobe in the next couple of months.

That said, though, I love winter. I’d take it over summer any day.