It has been a busy month on the school front. New Student Archivists have started to take up their duties, and this has involved me in a fair amount of induction training. The five who have so far appeared (a sixth has yet to reveal his intentions!) have shown great enthusiasm, matched by competence and a fund of new ideas, all in equal measure - which I find very invigorating. Happily, they have not (yet) developed the healthy disrespect of their predecessors for my 'archaic' filing system! It is an interesting sidelight on social change that all five, who are studying History to 'A' level, are of Asian descent. Equally fascinating is their difficulty in not addressing me as 'Sir'.

The 79^th Commemoration Dinner, attended largely but not exclusively by old boys, is something of an annual highlight as well as an ordeal because I am a reluctant member of its organising 'task force'. I attempt, usually successfully, to place on the tables at the dinner a biannual newsletter (grandly named 'The Astonian') which I thoroughly enjoy editing. This time, though, I have been much less successful in mailing it to those members who are unable to attend. Problems on someone else's computer mean that I cannot get mailing labels printed, which I find enormously frustrating.

This is soon followed by the school's annual Speech Day, where the policy of inviting young old boys to present the sports awards and then speak is a welcome relief from from listening, at length, to the great and, usually elderly, good.

Birmingham's Christmas market is a magnet at this time of year. I have been twice: once to meet a former boss, and now good friend, on a visit from Hemel Hempstead to see it; and once to see it at night, when the atmosphere is almost magical. I will probably go again, such are its attractions.

The closure of my gardening season permits the resumption of my slide digitisation project. Though laborious, this gives me the opportunity to see again photographs taken more than 21 years ago, on what was my first Ramblers holiday for 22 years! The project is currently 57% complete.

My electricity suppliers, who had perhaps best remain nameless, have finally completed the administration necessary for me to be paid for the power my solar panels generate. It took them four months. I have one more hurdle to jump: submitting a meter reading. Despite the fact that they refuse to accept an initial meter reading of 'zero', my calculations show that the panels have already generated enough electricity to pay this year's bills. Their intransigence over the meter reading prompted me to invoke their complaints procedure, which has elicited no response - not even an acknowledgement of receipt. No wonder they were fined £2 million!

It is a measure of the mildness of the weather that my 'Christmas' cactus is already in flower.