Well, that's it again, isn't it? We can pack up the decorations, stuff the dustbin bags full and hope the dustbin men, or whatever they like to be called nowadays, don't remember we were tardy with a tip, and move all those unwise food buys to another part of the fridge while frantically searching through our recipe books for anything containing slightly dried Stilton, smoked oysters and a dented pork pie.

I must confess I've been smiling a little bit this week thinking of all those people who now have to climb up onto their roof within the next day or so to wrestle with a frosty Santa or frozen reindeer which has probably stuck itself firmly to the chimney and is conjoined by icicles to the slates.

It may have seemed a good idea to haul a complete life-sized Walt Disney Winter Wonderland scene complete with sleighbells and more than one elf up a ladder and attach it to a not inconsiderable part of the National Grid when the weather was nice and mild pre-Christmas. But it's not so funny when a force nine south easterly with a wind chill of minus 36 is whistling up your new Chinos is it?

My favourite post Christmas occupation is to play 'spot the present'. It's a game you can play from the comfort of your driving seat in any car park or parking space from Boxing Day onwards.

Firstly there are the youngsters. They are all out in force waving various electronic objects around, beeping and texting away, or even busier falling off skateboards and new scooters and having to be taken home to have liberal amounts of TCP applied to new grazes.

This year's fad is, apparently, the pogo stick which has been given the same treatment the old fashioned scooter got last year. It is now, I'm told, a state of the art object rather than being a rather pointless stick with two footholds on it which was usually given the same attention span as a pair of stilts. In other words, you fell off once and then it went into the shed.

The new pogo stick is made of metal and boings up and down alarmingly. If anything has the words 'accident waiting to happen' stamped all over it I've yet to meet it.

It should come with a map to the nearest casualty department.

I watched youngsters in the car park going boing, boing crash, or more likely boing, crash, scream. Dads were watching fondly as children, clad in more protective clothing than a Gladiator, attempted to get more than one boing at a time going.

One Dad, braver than the others, had a go and managed two boings before falling forward with the pogostick in between his legs. It was definitely no go pogo time for him, if the expression on his face had anything to go by.

Then there are the parents who have bought their younger children a tricycle in the mistaken belief that now their little darlings will be able to happily ride with them to the shops instead of whining all the way home and having to be carried along with the shopping. Little do these innocents realise that what will really happen is that little one will become tired and grumpy 400 yards from home and they will end up having to carry the child, shopping baskets and a tricycle or any other wheeled conveyance they have unwisely chosen. Such is life with a little one.

Other gifts are apparent. Supermarket queues reek of a mixture of expensive and inexpensive scent and aftershave.

Girls are wearing all their new finery despite the falling temperature and therefore have blue legs and goosebumps the size of hens eggs.

Mum feels she has to wear that electric blue furry scarf even though it clashes horribly with her yellow coat.

And then there are the jumpers. Who says the Val Doonican look is dead? You can see them in the pub on Boxing Day morning, the male species wearing its new jumper.

Many of them shriek of 'what on earth can we buy Dad, or Uncle Charlie or Grandpa this year? I know, let's get him one of those big chunky multi-coloured sweaters which are usually so stiff he has a job to move his arm up and down again to attract the barmaid.'

Some of the males are lucky, their plumage is just a plain old one colour job. Others have more adventurous mates or possibly far more inventive mothers-in-law who have managed to find jumpers bearing large animals ranging from fully maned lions to very large hedgehogs knitted in contrasting four ply on the front. It takes a brave man to go out wearing a giant ginger hedgehog on his chest.

A good many of these objects will end up in charity shops, some of them within the month. Which is why by the end of February you don't need to look far if you want a nice warm gardening jumper complete with smiling hedgehog or a simpering sheep on it.

My first thought on January 1 was that I am now in my sixtieth year. Oh goodie. There was a time you could at least look forward to free teeth and eye glasses. Now you don't get so much as a measly molar. Half price fares might be around somewhere, but there's not much public transport left to use them on. Worse still, having paid national insurance all my working life I am now pretty sure that by the time I might need to call in the debt there won't be much left in the kitty to provide so much as an artificial finger nail, never mind the odd artificial hip.

In that department, if I should ever be in the unfortunate position to need that kind of operation I'm going to demand a reduction in size. I've always wanted smaller hips . . .

Now I'm being silly, but who cares?