Good evening from a very merry and festive Newton - which looks like a cross between Santa's grotto and a turkey farm, Mrs Sparrow having sourced a turkey hat supplier for Buzzer. Silent reading became silent decorating (with a slight difference of opinion about what constituted silence) and the dorms now look very, well, Christmassy. I was asked which dorm I considered to be the best, to which I replied that the 'best' could easily be the most under-stated, and I particularly enjoyed one particular resident's minimalist take on it all, with little more than an angel on a horse. To be fair, there was a scrap of tinsel surrounding the locker-top decoration. So all of that, along with Santa hats (incidentally, are my wife and her mother the only people on the planet to pronounce Santa as if the first a has a macron on it, thus rendering it 'Sarnta'?) and spinning tops that played Christmas melodies, the whole place has a quasi-anarchic feel to it tonight.

It's been a busy old afternoon, as my first duty was to play the piano for the choirs as they entertained about 100 elderly local residents who came to our dining room for a Christmas tea, which of course led to the inevitable comments from my colleagues and so-called friends about where I wanted to sit, and did I need to go anywhere, etc., etc., and then this evening I officiated at the senior public speaking comp, standing in for Dr Dean, who's been called away.

Not all of the rezzies were that taken by decorating, of course, and a group of football enthusiasts watched Arsenal versus somewhere else in the Clubhouse, while two or three foodies curled up on our sofa and watched 'Jimmy's Food Factory'. I love it when they get to the stage when they realise that our home is also theirs during term time.

My evening's highlight, though, was being invited to put on a pair of seventies-looking spectacles and frighten the living daylights out of Miss Chloe. And to think that in that particular decade I really did have a pair of glasses like that ... ! (Next time you go to Papplewick to watch SF beat the hell out of one of their teams, take a look at the school photos from between 1973 to 1980. Oh yes, I bet you already have - and there wasn't a grey hair in sight, was there ... ?!)

Finally, I can tell you with much pleasure that the lovely Miss Chloe is to be replaced by the lovely Miss Alexandra. Who presumably will become Miss Alex very quickly - and not by her Facebook moniker of Miss 'Minx'! Those of you who subscribe to that Colossus of the social networking (or newtworking, as I just typed it) sites can see a photo of her - and I've already informed the HM that no, he can't switch roles with me next term. She's the sister of the excellent Mr L'Estrange, whom (I do like 'whom') many of your sons, and probably you, too, will recall.

So, from a very happy Newton lodge, I wish you a fond goodnight. And this, by the way, is the 276th bloglog since it started. I just thought you'd like to know.