"Hello Boys and Girls, are ye all enjoyin' yersel?"

No doubt you are wondering if I have had too much of the golden nectar but no, here in Strachur, as in every other village in Scotland, we are in the middle of Pantomime rehearsals. Pantomime is a peculiarly British thing and I was very taken aback recently when a couple who were staying with us from Texas announced that their school regularly performed a "Pantomime". Further discussion revealed that their version of "Panto" was completely different from ours - it was in fact a "mime" - whereas our Scottish pantos are full of audience participation - men dressed up as women, women dressed up as men - ludicrous story lines and everyone ending up happy ever after. It is usually - if done well - a terrific 2 hours of fun for all the family and I know from many experiences the cast enjoy the whole crazy production every bit as much as the audience.

The Strachur Panto is a very new phenomenon in the village and this will be out fourth newly-written offering. Our audiences are growing by the year and when it comes to the actual performance we have all sorts of locals helping with backstage work, teas, tickets - in fact anything that needs doing gets done by some willing helper - a real community project! Of course when its all over the Director/Producer (myself) needs to go and lie down for a fortnight - it is an extremely exhausting, but very rewarding experience. It's the little things that make it all worthwhile, the smiles on the faces of the old folks from surrounding residential homes who enjoy being among the children and singing their hearts out, or the children skipping out of the hall singing some tune or other they've learned during the performance, and asking their parents if they can come back next week! If you haven't tried it you're missing out - it's great to act like a big kid again and get away with it!

On the wildlife front, the new Highland Pony foal Tess with her mum Rhona, continues to grow and thrive. Getting ever so curious these days she will almost let me pat her but not quite yet - maybe by next spring, when she'll be a yearling.

It's amazing what lands on our bird table, this chappie had a terrible time trying to get to the food under the canopy - he was just too big but he gave it a good try anyway. I also caught a cat sitting there one day and managed to capture it on camera - I hope the photograph turns out. A pair of Goldfinches were spotted just two days ago feeding from the station at the back - I've never seen them here outside mid summer but until today it has been very mild, I guess that's the reason.

Several deer have been wandering about the cottage - not at all concerned about us watching them watching us - they are delightful. The weather has turned very cold indeed over the last 24hours and I shall have to get a "jildy" on to plant the last few bulbs before the ground completely feezes over. December usually changes from being very cold and crisp to very mild and damp and this continues until January when you really know it's winter - then we look forward to Spring.

May we at Burnside Cottage, take this opportunity to wish you all, wherever you are, the very best of the Festive Season and may 1999 be your happiest year yet.