Oops I'm late!!! - Natalie Anderson

Huge apologies for running in from the wings - late in the afternoon! It's Christmas you see, and I'm on holiday and forgotten what day it is (well, time is now divided according to how long it is until the Jolly Red Bloke turns up).

How are your plans coming along? Here in New Zealand its a scorcher of a summer and the last couple of days have brought very hot, gale force winds. We're camping at the moment and a couple of tent poles have snapped in the 'breeze'. The wind where we are is a Foehn wind - and it can make us all go a little crazy. Factor in huge Christmas traffic on the roads and manic last minute shoppers in the malls and we end up giving thanks for swimming pools and delight in running through sprinklers on the lawn. A very different scene to those of you in the Northern Hemisphere with snow, snow, snow and no airports open. I do hope you're all able to get where you need to for Christmas.

Anyway, more relatives are about to arrive here and I'm on bed-making duty, but I wanted to leave you with a wonderfully romantic two-minute present for Christmas. Here's the closing scene from that wonderful movie, Cinema Paradiso, where the film-maker sees all the kisses that his old projectionist boss edited from all the movies that were shown in his home town. It's wonderful.

Wishing you all a safe and Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!