So, it’s Christmas Eve. I’ve been immersed in the editing of Remember Remember this week – a brain-splitting session with my courageous editor on Monday drove me back into it. But today it’s time to down tools and take a few days’ break.

I’ve been having a ball creating a Magical Forest. Each year I write a story for my grandchildren and they act it out; DJ takes photographs throughout, and in January we present them each with an illustrated book of the story.

This year preparation involves making magical trees – the chocolate tree is destined to become a favourite, I suspect. And there’s a stone which mysteriously lights up when the children (actually forest pixies – well, I come from Cornwall) touch it when they’re energised by magic from the chocolate tree. A sort of mini-Geiger-counter. The photos show the staircase in the process of being converted into a forest. If you thought you had problems with needles shed by one tree …!

Once 27th is over I’ll be back to rooting out inelegant juxtapositions of metaphors, scanning for homophones, and pruning adverbs, but for now a very Happy Christmas to you all, and thanks for visiting my blog.