Time to get started on Christmas baking, which now constitutes a major component of gifts to relations and certain friends. Trouble is, Edmund's away and I just don't feel like making fruitcake when I'm on my own. I have already put in several hours of no-fun maintenance activity today -- shovelling snow, getting the car to the shop for snow tires and an oil change, shopping at Wal-Mart (shudder) -- so I'm giving myself a pass on kitchen heroics until tomorrow, after my trip to the gym.

We have two new cats in the house, littermates who came to us at 12 weeks of age and are now 10 days in residence. Rosie the senior cat is not happy with this development, and periodic eruptions of feline hate provide evidence of an incursion by Rosie into the upstairs den where the kittens are ensconced, or of the adventurous sallies of Watson, who must have been a recce patrolman in a previous life, closely followed by sister Isobel, who lets Watson do all the hard work. The books upstairs are all ahoo because Isobel likes to climb the shelves and fling paperbacks at her brother. The repairs on the back of the house were finally finished and paid for, so of course Life had to throw me another curve ball just when I thought I could relax for the winter ...

With three weeks to go to Christmas, I am one pound away from my arbitrary goal of 150 by Christmas Eve. With any luck at all, I will head into the annual bout of family visits in maintenance mode. I am also blessedly healthy -- no cold, and only the normal occasional mild hacking cough that means I'm breathing. In fact, I can't remember any time in my adult life when I have felt so fit and well.

Next spring, I'm going to start running.