My home for Christmas 2012

So the gifts are wrapped and if you are in England you are checking out what will be on the telly tonight and over Chrismas. So if you are in England don't forget to walk down the streets and drive through the villages and see the Christmas lights. Sing with all your heart Christmas carols down the streets. Go to a Carol service or a small church. I loved the services in Stanton so many good memories, thanks Aspinalls. See the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square. Ride on a double-decker bus and listen to the merry tunes of buskers singing in the streets of London. Don't forget to have some Christmas cake and Christmas pudding and oh some yummy custard. Open up a cracker and pull the wish bone with a friend. Enjoy a meal at a pub. Listen to the Queens speech. And stuff,stuff your face with loads of yummy Cadbury's chocolates. In other words this is my home and I am so jealous that you are there. So from my family to yours have a wonderful Christmas in England and may one day soon we will be home for Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

Which book will clean your very soul this Christmas?

I find this time of year magical and my most favorite movie at Christmas is The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. It takes me back to England and walking in the snow near Renwick Park in West Runton to walking in the snow on New Years Day, with my dad saying that God had wiped the world clean. I find the simplicity of the story magical. I find it so totally what England is all about. I remember my brother wearing one of those dressing gowns with the cord tied around his waist. Us all eagerly looking out of the windows to see the snow. The story transports me back in time and to my England. Then another amazing author Nick Butterworth in all the Percy Park stories, takes us to the wonderful parks in England where indeed we often see the park keeper. Oh to read One Snowy Night and to be taken to that park with all those wonderful animals. But perhaps simplicity is not on your reading list this Christmas, then go with me to A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens perhaps you will just read the words, or perhaps you will allow your mind to see how you can change and make the future brighter. See Charles Dickens might of written it about a man called Scrooge but let's be real there is that man in all of us and all of us need to be changed. So here are my favorites, what books from Good Olde England will you read and which ones will change your life forever? As my dad use to say on

New Years Day when it snowed that God wiped the world clean, I ask you which book will clean your very soul to make your Christmas Merry and Bright There's always room for one more.