Newton is a happy place once more. We had a lodge meeting last night, in which I explained, in a pretty forthright and fulsome manner, that certain forms of behaviour were completely unacceptable, that all Newtonians were old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, and that I was not going to allow Miss Ruthie's final days in the lodge to be ruined by thoughtlessness. Christmas, I informed the residents, robustly, was going to be a happy and joyful time for all of us, whether they liked it or not. So there.

Well, it worked. Last night was a lovely evening once my fulminations were complete and we all had a peaceful, happy and pleasant time. Whatever derailment of the Newton Flyer there might have been had been rectified and we found ourselves back on course for the e of t. All is well; all is calm, all is (well, most of the time) bright.

Thank you to those who expressed concern about my health in the light of the fact that yesterday's blog entry didn't get posted until late in the day: I can assure all of you that I am now in rude health (no, I'll forego the pleasure I could have had there, for the sake of decency) and it's only because the end-of-term timetable is so different from the norm that it's sometimes quite difficult to find a slot where I can indulge. But I'm touched that you care, and I'm delighted that some of you do read my ramblings! I sometimes think that I'm churning out this stuff simply because I enjoy writing it! And if my computer, which has just told me that it wants to turn itself off and restart does anything of the kind, it will find itself as the recipient of punitive action far beyond anything that any Newtonian has had to bear!

Safe so far - although it's still making ominous gurgling noises. I think I'll stop there, just in case.

An e-mail from Miss Chloe, by the way, informs me that she has a pet wombat. Yes, I thought you'd like that snippet. More tomorrow.