"Dashing in the Snow"... I do hope so.

All the selections for the TV races and also for the Curtains.

I have always felt great sympathy for the horror stories one reads of cliff-edge subsidence, with beloved family homes teetering on the edge of a chasm leading to the surf below. Similarly, devastating floods and scrubland infernos where images of desperately bailing housewives or tee-shirted homesteaders futilely beating at the encroaching firestorm with a shovel should impact anyone with a kind heart.

We were flooded once, leaving an emotional scar that will never heal. That loss of hearth and home cannot be wished on any neighbour. Perhaps hearing the flames of Los Angeles on the news and the bleating of sheep in the icy wastes of Lincolnshire made me gird my loins and tackle one of the significant issues that has plagued conversational life at The Chateau d’If. For almost two years, it has been “When” or “Where?” and even occasionally “Who?” but this week, as the USA burned, I stepped away from the edge, stopped doing nothing and took control. I was no longer prepared to accept obfuscation, excuses or procrastination. Delaying tactics with research were cast aside.