AT this time of the year the human calendars come out. You know, they're the sort who know just how many days it is until Christmas down to the last hour, and some of them even start in September. I know they're only trying to be helpful, but I wish they wouldn't. I'm perfectly capable of adding just how many days there are left this month to the 24 days of next month and coming up with a correct figure. They're probably people who have already bought all their cards and wrapping paper and laid away four rolls of Sellotape and they will remember where they have put them come the week before the festivities. Anyway, I don't need to be told. Christmas is creeping in wherever you look. I've already seen someone unravelling yards of lights in their garden with the determination of a person who is all set to drain the national grid even further this year with two more reindeer and a posse of elves running over the roof and a nativity scene on the front porch which seems to contain the entire population of Bethlehem. Then there's the fact that almost every magazine or newspaper contains at least half a dozen catalogues which fall out in an untidy heap on the floor. They range from the ridiculously expensive catalogues with heaps of useless presents to the cheap and nasty catalogues with heaps of useless presents. I mean, who would want a life-size, blow-up Santa, with a distinctive Oriental look about his features proving that he probably doesn't hail from Lapland but more likely downtown Shanghai? There's nothing remotely festive about anything you blow up – certainly not six wonky reindeer and a vomit-green elf to go with the Fu Manchu Santa. Gifts include truly hideous his and hers seasonal jumpers – his with reindeer next to a fir tree, hers with a friendly robin on a log. These are jumpers you can only wear on a couple of days a year, if you feel the need to inflict a techni- coloured double-knit pictorial sweater on your family round the dining table. You might just get away with it on Boxing Day, but only if you don't mind sniggers down the pub. The expensive catalogues contain such sought- after items as brass carriage drive lanterns should you have a carriage drive on your bungalow, various tasteful pot pourri containers, Wedgwood vases and tooled leather items. Very fond of tooled leather items are the posh catalogues. There are cat catalogues and dog catalogues, catalogues for horsey people and gardeners, catalogues for hobbies and a special catalogue just for men. Somewhere around are catalogues for miserable old aunts and mean relatives who never send you a gift but you feel you must send them one in case they leave you out of the will. And there should be one for searching out gifts from people who want to suck up to the boss. I feel tooled leather could come in here somewhere. My favourite catalogue fell out of one of the Sunday papers. It's not really a Christmas catalogue at all, it's actually their usual catalogue reprinted with bits of holly and jingle bells dotted around the pages to give it a festive feel. Which isn't easy because it sells things like incontinence pants, nose hair trimmers and hernia supports. Not your average gift but I'm sure very welcome in the right household. Anyone fancy a gaily wrapped ear wax remover? Then there are people trying to sell you large new items for your home. A new suite for, a new carpet. A change of cooker or freezer or washing machine. Everything promised to be delivered before Christmas day, even the furniture. There was a time when I was naive enough to think that if you bought a new suite of furniture it would naturally be delivered fairly swiftly. I was therefore surprised to find that there was an eight-week waiting list, and this wasn't actually guaranteed. Seeing as I had already disposed of the old suite, this was a fairly long time for the family to have to stand round the TV or sit on deck chairs. On Sunday, not really in preparation for Christmas although we secretly hoped we might find the 2004 missing festive lights, we had a big clear out in what is loosely called 'the coat cupboard'. This is a fairly big hall cupboard which houses coats, gloves, scarves and just about anything else which will fit into it. And quite a lot of things which don't and regularly fall out onto toes and shins. Next to the coat cupboard is the shoe cupboard, which in some households would contain neat rows of pairs of shoes, some in shoe trees but this isn't some households. My son-in-law manfully took on this task, which is never pleasant unless you like the aroma of eau- de-old-trainer. Even the cats don't bother to venture into this understairs area. At the end of it there were piles of 'to throw away' shoes and a big box of 'do these need keeping in which case would the owners take them away?' Half of these were, mysteriously, single shoes with no sign of their mates. Perhaps we should keep them in the same place we store the single socks, at least they could keep each other company. Cleaning out any cupboard needs to be done without the presence of children, who look upon it as a massive treasure hunt. The last time we had a toy cupboard blitz, my grandson went through all the rubbish sacks and took half the contents back to his bedroom. Next time we'll have to do it when he's in bed. This time he was mercifully out. The coat cupboard didn't reveal any fairy lights, but there were last year's cards, written but not posted, coats which I don't remember buying and certainly not wearing, suit jackets whose skirts have already been recycled because I couldn't find the jackets, scarves, hats and gloves (single gloves, of course), two rolls of Christmas sticky tape which will certainly disappear again soon only be found months later. And spiders. I know spiders tend to come indoors in winter, but this was the mother-lode. An entomologist's field day. The arachnids' Piccadilly Circus. I knew one of the spiders was extra big because my daughter screamed. 'It's the size of a dinner plate', she yelled. I'm not really frightened of spiders but I can't say I like china plate-sized ones. 'Get the vacuum cleaner', she said. 'If you wish to live and thrive, let a spider run alive,' I chanted virtuously. She ignored my poetic input and grabbed the cleaner's nozzle. 'It's fighting back,' she reported, and, indeed, it was hanging on grimly with several of its limbs. But the result – Dyson one, spider nil – was fairly inevitable. Then I noticed that the spider was sitting atop a pile of fluff inside the cleaner's transparent top, dusting itself off and preparing a come-back. For humanitarian reasons I wondered if I should release it from its dusty prison and risk an eight- legged dinner plate hurling itself at me or should I pretend that I hadn't spotted it. Just then, my son-in-law returned and I swiftly asked him nicely if he wouldn't mind emptying the vacuum cleaner. He did, and I waited for a scream but none came so I presume it is now living happily down the rubbish tip. The coat cupboard now has only coats in it, all hanging on newly discovered hangers. The shoe cupboard is footless and fancy free. We're almost ready for Christmas now, with only 32 days left to go. Or 30 when you read this. If you read it on Friday. Otherwise do your own maths.

Last week Prince Charles was reported to have told his staff to stop using gas-guzzling carbon monoxide-producing cars and take to two wheels. In other words 'on yer bike'. One of the tabloids immediately seized on his own track-record with trains, planes and automobiles, which doesn't seem to include a mountain bike, or not very often. It's all part of his green image, which he's very keen on. To help him out I suggest that next time he visits Cornwall to look round one of his properties we all club together to get him a nice shiny bike which will be waiting for him on the Cornish side of the Tamar at Gunnislake. Then he can happily cycle over to Stoke Climsland, via Gunnislake Hill, Hingston Down and over that bumpy road through Kelly Bray down to the village. I think he might be not so much green but rather red in the face when he arrives.