Floody hell, it's Christmas Eve!

2012: Memorable for the queen's diamond jubilee, the Olympics, The Great British Bake Off and the Christmas floods. All of it overshadowed (in my mind, at least) by My Christmas Cooking Marathon. Loyal followers will know that I have been smugly preparing for weeks, but I have recently been having this recurring nightmare where I am locked in the kitchen for hours at a time cooking, while the hands on the clock turn faster and faster, but the list of jobs barely diminishes. And then I realise that's no dream - it's my really real life.

Merry Christmas

If anyone wants me, I'll be lying behind the sofa with an empty bottle of cooking sherry...

With best wishes for a salmonella-free Christmas.