There are many winter activities if skiing or snowboarding aren't on your list — guided scenic motorcoach tours, horse-drawn sleigh rides, Johnston Canyon icewalks, ice-fishing, snowshoeing, skating, tobogganing, and more.

I was feeling just as I had felt in the old Malvern House epoch when I used to sneak down to [the schoolmaster]'s study at dead of night in quest of the biscuits he kept there in a tin on his desk, and there came back to me the memory of the occasion when, not letting a twig snap beneath my feet, I had entered his sanctum in pyjamas and a dressing-gown, to find him seated in his chair, tucking into the biscuits himself.

Consequently, to brighten up a shady spot in the front garden we have recently added ‘Harlequin’, its green foliage splashed generously with white, though hopefully not to be splashed generously with a multicolour yawn.

I flounder off toward the shouts and whipcracks, screaming for my life.