'Of course we've got to have a Christmas Letter. We've done it for years now.' 'But these days the comedians do parodies of them on television!' 'Too bad, we'll just have to stand up and be quoted.' '-I can't think of a thing to say.' 'Well, let's look at some old ones.' And so the entire family, from Jones to Jo, sat around the table with puzzled faces trying to work out what Our Hero's epistles were about. 'No wonder they do parodies of them, Dad!' Anyway, here we are again, and I wasn't pushed, honest. I was thrown.

"Santa's £3.99. With Rat, £4.99." At last, Cambridge's first punk Christmas shop? The Counter Culture confronts the counter culture? Around me the electronic bells of the toy counter culture burped amid the tinsel, and some kind of seasoning seemed more desirable than ever. Would you believe, the local hardware store has rope lights with a 5-function programmable controller? This is taking computing to the masses in ways Thos never dreamt of in his work on easier programming. Better ask the children about Santa's Rats.

Not that one sees one's children so much, these days. The pair of boots by the stairs - "I'm home, folks" - suffices for basic communication. Amazing how often they've been away. School trip to Russia produced much excitement from the Association for Alarmist Rumours about the quality of drinking water in St Petersburg. They returned with their passports intact, photos of their friends doing unlikely things in cold-looking places, and a collection of unexpected mementoes. Who else has a melodeon that plays in A flat and is fitted with two bicycle bells? (Why two? One might be enough for most purposes. Dar yea nu!^*). Most Tasteless Thing On Offer: a Russian doll made up of representations of Most Unpopular Rulers of the World. pleased to find that a certain recent prime minister made her appearance ...

Owen followed that up with a Petty Tour, today's version of the Grand Tour, in which one sets out to visit as many rail stations of Europe as one can manage. Quite a lot, it seems from the photos. He and mate Al can give intending Petty Tourists useful advice on sleeping possibilities in stations from Hamburg to Venice. They spent 2 and a bit hours in Venice before catching the next train out: didn't appeal to them. Too bad, Ruskin.

Martin has been treading the same wary path. Don't Put Your Son In the Sixth-Form, Mrs Green, for he'll not be able to find the right combination of subjects at any of them. For some reason, not everyone yet realises that Chemistry, Geology and Ancient History are the starting point of all the best careers. Indeed, if he hadn't spent the work experience part of his school year at the Sedgewick Museum painting model iguanadons, even Martin might not have realised. Quite a place: one of the regular team could imitate a trumpet so well that Martin thought someone was playing one, another could discourse for hours on the beauty of the University Telephone Directory, and everyone of them was a racing cyclist of some sort.

Jo has produced at least 8 detailed and persuasively-argued grant applications in the last two years, which are fruiting only reluctantly. A little excitement has been injected into her life, though, by the discovery that when the old physics laboratories were quitted by the Old Physicists, they left behind quite a lot of mercury. After lying doggo for many years it has started to register on the regular tests. The Association for Alarmist Rumours seems to have plenty to get its teeth into this time, as alarmingly-suited specialists arrive from Harwell (home of UK atomic energy cleaning-up processes) and seal off bits of the place, take everything apart, collect blobs and dribbles from floor and joist, put everything back together and move on to the next room. Alas, not only did the readings stay high, but the mercury took to dripping pettishly out of the ceiling on bad days. They may evacuate the whole building. What happened to those legendary Texans who were supposed to delight in buying bits of Olde Englande and transporting them stone by stone to somewhere else - anywhere would do - and rebuilding them?

We tried canalling again this year &endash; Martin's choice of birthday present &endash; drifting sluggishly through the waters of the Grand Union. Canal boats are very long and very thin, which means that everyone spends their life in a complicated dance ('danced Gangways, for as many as can'). Everyone goes around everyone else, squeezing past as they go to find their book/camera/whatever; then everyone turns round and comes back, squeezing past the other way. To impart vigour to our dance, we took accordion, concertina, mandola (=big mandolin), whistles, flute, and two friends to help play them. And we have a photo of Martin and Anna steering and playing simultaneously. We never hit a thing, either &endash; well, nothing that sank - although when it came to turning around and going home, it must be admitted that narrow boats (which at times are very long and very thin) can prove quite vexing. Advice to newcomers: if you really must try backing into a convenient waterway, don't choose one that turns out to be the entrance to a marina. All the pros come out and look amused.

We had another sluggish week, Jo and Thos, pretending to cycle in Somerset. Took the bikes down on the car, but managed a stunning average of 3 ground miles a day. But we had a wonderful time walking and diving, instead, especially collecting buskers in Bath, where they have to busk near a bank because they make so much money. Five-year old Irish children with fiddles who'd learnt to push the collecting box at the punters before they played their first note: a string quintet belting out light classics: and two guys who pushed a piano through the streets until they found a bench, seated themselves, and then, still wiping their brows in the pauses, poured out piano duets. That pair needed an umbrella, not a hat, the money came so fast. Martin has tried some of that round Cambridge, but it's not the same when your schoolfellows come and heckle.

Maybe sluggishness has been the year's theme .... Our garden has been looking more settled this year (readers! do you not recall it was rebuilt last year?) and we have tried to sluggate in it, forcing ourselves to sit still and not to decapitate deadheads, winkle weeds, or glare at greenfly. The water has tinkled gently down the waterway (at last, after much effort in raising the tinkle quotient, by means of cunningly created cement and cobbles) and the butterflies have teased the hell out of the cats. Thos is impatient for the lichen to grow on the stonework. Given the rate lichen grows at, he'll be impatient for quite a while. One can really get surprisingly involved with one's garden, grieving over sunstruck plants that have had to be quickly rescued in more sheltered spots.

In fact, Thos was so enchanted that he suddenly conceived the idea of building an indoor garden railway. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Dream railway, to be exact, in Xanadu. But O! that dark romantic chasm, etc. So we took to calling at garden centres, and Jo would try to get under the carpet while Thos explained happily that he wanted little plants for a 4mm Moorish railway. To our amazement, the plant sellers responded with anecdotes of friends with similar interests. In fact, one of the recipients (not, it is true, a plant seller, but Thos's eye surgeon) gave him a half hour introduction to the art of making small glass terraria, otherwise known as That sunny dome! Those caves of ice! Unfortunately he followed up in due course with a lens implant on Thos's left eye. That makes two cataracts he's had so far ("Glad I'm not a peacock!" - T.).

And during all this, come rain come shine, Owen has faithfully carried plates of meat and two veg: (well, today it was mange tout, roast spuds, and dodgy-looking beef) to the well born lads and lasses of Peterhouse. On some days there was creme brulée (mostly down Someone's Gullet) but certainly not for students. Ice cream's good enough for them, it seems. Ah, what hardships, to eat ice cream while the High table and the waiters scoff all that creme brulée (especially seeing it was invented in Peterhouse, too). (Also invented in Magdalen, Pembroke, St John's, and .. er ..Robinson. All independently of course.)

Just in case anyone's worried, T's eyes are improving now. He went past the same shop again today. It said Santas with Hats, not Rats. Pity. Think what the Association for Alarmist Rumours missed.

Hope to see you all next year. Best wishes for all the season from The Greens.