Life used to be rounds of 21st birthdays, engagements, weddings and baby bashes. Now, increasingly, it's the funeral fling with the Grim Reaper, who has called upon my dear friend, Paul Sneddon.

When I recently offered my husband the chance of a whirlwind Berlin visit he said, no, he'd rather go to Inverness. I suspect this enthusiasm for the Highland capital was inspired by two considerations.

She thought I didn't see her, but I did. She thought she was hidden behind the huge trolley of frozen pizzas and microwavable cottage pies, busting out the dance moves to Donna Summers “Hot Stuff” coming over the speakers.

Hello 2026, and farewell ‘Not proven’, that unique Scottish verdict that baffled the rest of the world and it seems, even our own legal eagles, who didn’t exactly hit the barricades to keep it.

A nice chap at Edinburgh Airport has been busy with one of those little clickers counting how many people come in and out for Hogmanay.

Following a herculean effort on the savings front, my daughter has pulled off the near impossible for today's young folks and bought her first flat. Her brother is going halfies.

Hopefully your Christmas was joyous. We should cherish it because we once banned it. John Knox, Reformation party boy, loathed it, binned it and started fining people for having festive fun.

We’ve been held under siege these last weeks. Neither of us can leave the house without fully informing the other because of ‘deliveries’.

Earlier this month I tentatively suggested we change the family tradition of buying a real tree at Christmas. Yes, I freely admit, I was swayed by the daytime telly adverts for fake Canadian Spruces.

There is much worry these days about ‘artificial intelligence’. I can see the anxiety, but be reassured. We have been here before and survived, even though the fake was on our very plates.

At this time of year I must do battle with my mortal enemy. Sellotape. Other sticky tapes are available, but, just as there are vampires, above them all is Dracula. Sellotape is the apex sticky monster.

What a hulla-baloo at every-one’s favourite Leith-based public swimming pool.

This year, I thought I’d break with a Christmas tradition and buy an artificial tree. We’ve usually gone for a real one, because I thought it was better for the planet.

Great burny flames of rage will be fired in my direction for this deeply uncool opinion, but I don’t care. I like Glühwein. There, I said it. Oh, I know.

The Evening News has a charming habit of re-printing old photos of Edinburgh. They sure do make me feel old. I’m even in one of them.

So we’re sending our footballing boys West for the World Cup after all. Must admit, even for someone who doesn’t know anything about the beautiful game, that game against the Danes was quite something.

We have reached the stage of my mothers recovery that I like to refer to as ‘mildly exasperating’.

As a grumpy old lefty, I tend to find the crowds I wind up in are full of angry people waving placards, some of which are misspelt and at least one will have an apostrophe which is either totally unnecessary or in the wrong place.

Too much of a good thing can be dangerous. Take drink. A nice single malt on a cold night is a wonder, but too much and that warmth turns into alcohol poisoning, and madness ensues.

When the email arrived I had to read it twice. Edinburgh Napier, a university which I have always held in the highest regard, wished to bestow an honorary degree on me.