Sadly, copious quantities of Quality Street, Heroes, mince pies, etc etc made their appearance in the office and at home, and it was a case of "get thee behind me Satan… and push me in".

Much of the good work of the previous few months – half-a-stone lost in a bid to buy trousers a waist size thinner in the January sales – has been undone.

Walks with Hamish are now that little bit longer, in distance and time.
He's nearly 13, so the speed at which we lap the fields and woods around Alpheton is not quite as brisk as it once was.

So the first resolution of 2008 is that biscuits, sweets, chocolate and cakes will be banned – at home anyway.

It's back to being good again; once I've finished off that last bit of Christmas pudding, and the box of biscuits for cheese, and the tube of Pringles...


One other resolution, that has already bitten the dust, was to be nice to Babergh. After all, if we are to move to East and West Suffolk councils in the near future, then Babergh is living on borrowed time.

But any sympathy soon vanished with the unveiling of plans to introduce ticket machines into car parks in Sudbury – Hadleigh already has them – which the council assures us is not the first step towards charging. Of course.

It is, shall we say, less than honest of Babergh to further claim it has no plans to introduce parking charges in Sudbury, Hadleigh and Lavenham.

Yes it does. They are stored on a disk somewhere at Babergh HQ, and keep being wheeled out with increasing frequency.

Fortunately, at present, the majority of Babergh councillors are sensible and keep throwing those plans out. But we know they'll be back.


Every weekend I make my contribution to a local club by buying raffle tickets or something similar, which usually end up in the bin. But my weekly gambling habit paid dividends at Long Melford FC recently when I won the Bus Stop.

Pick a team for 50p and if the name of that team is revealed when a panel is scratched off the card, you win. Thanks to QPR I picked up a tenner – well £7 in £1 coins and six 50p pieces.

I report the win because it was one of those blue moon days. If memory serves me correctly a bottle of wine at another ground four years ago was the last success... a great prize for someone who is teetotal. But we found a home for it.