THE final countdown. Hope yours is merry (no family punch ups). Take it easy. See you on the other side.

WHAT'S Christmas without an awkward family moment? We all have one and I was regaling a workmate of mine with one of my family's awkward extended family moments.

I'll spare the said family member a retelling of the details but let's just - between you and I - match a teenager's fashion sense with the outspoken views of a four-year-old, and you have a fair idea of how that awkward family moment went down.

A LITTLE Famous Five Christmas merriment is just what you need, especially once you hear there are 27 days until the big day - if you count today.

So, with apologies to Enid Blyton and the illustrators who gave us all our imaginings of each of these super sleuths, I give you a Famous Five Xmas, with more to come every Friday before Santa makes his presence known.

This one's a corker. I'll have to set the scene. Aily is about 7 or 8. She's the youngest child in a hard-working farming family. She wanders off from her shepherd father, often accompanied by her small dog and a lamb. She's been missing from home and her mother spots her with Julian, Dick, George, Anne and Timmy the dog, who have just learned she's been sleeping rough in a barn.


Her mother stormed into the hut and dragged Aily out, shaking her well. Timmy growled, but Aily's little dog was as frightened as she was, and the lamb bleated pitifully in the child's arms.
"I take Aily home!" said her angry mother, glaring at the four children as if she thought they were responsible for the child's keeping away from home. "I whip her well!"

Clearly Blyton wasn't a fan of helicopter parenting. Nor, would she have held much store in making smacking a crime.

All my "Famous Five Says" posts may well be food-related. Each and every one of these picnic-like spreads has me salivating. Enjoy.

"Pork pie - home made, of course," said Dick. "And what's this - golly, it's a cheese! How enormous! Smell it, Julian - it's enough to make you start eating straightaway! And more of that home-made bread! Can't we start?"
"No - there are new-laid boiled eggs to begin with," said Anne with a laugh. "And an apple pie and cream to end with. So I hope you really are hungry, you two!"

Every so often - don't hold me to a routine - I'll whack up a quip from the Famous Five books I've started rereading. Already the books have inspired a drink and a nostalgia trip of ridiculous proportion and I thought I'd share a little of the wisdom and whimsy of the five's adventures.

It was a lovely picnic, that first one in the copse. There were clumps of primroses all round, and from somewhere nearby came the sweet scent of hidden violets. A thrush was singing madly on a hazel tree, with two chaffinches calling "pink pink" every time he stopped
"Band and decorations laid on," said Julian, waving his hand towards the singing birds and the primroses.