The first time was after we returned home from a trip to brother-in law. I guessed they had fallen out of my pocket (where I had "definitely" put them that morning) when I was sitting down, and we contacted BiL to hunt round his house. Then I had a brainwave: maybe there are in the pocket of my other trousers, you know, the ones I was wearing yesterday. They were. Sometimes I am a genius (but only sometimes though).

"BiL has spent hours hunting round his house for your keys", complained Mrs Barefoot.
"No he hasn’t. He’d have got his wife and daughter to do the hunting", I replied.

For the second misplacement, I knew they were somewhere in the house, as I’d unlocked the door earlier. After several fruitless searches through trousers, drawers and cupboards I had my second brainwave. Maybe I put them in the pot where we generally keep all of the keys. Sometimes I am a genius (but only sometimes).

Still haven’t found my watch, though.

We watched the film Philomena over the holidays; we’d not seen it before. Worth a watch – but should come with a mascara warning. I don’t think I’m giving too much away if I say the plot involves a convent that "looked after" pregnant teenagers. To atone for the sin [sic] of getting pregnant, the girls were required to work at the convent for four years – during which time their children would usually be sold for adoption, without consultation with the mothers. Different times; not necessarily better times.

"They really need to look at their social and ethical policy", remarked Child 2 – especially when he learned that this was based on a true story from about 50 years ago. OK, He wasn’t quite as eloquent as that. What he actually said was "that is so f**ked".

The Railway Children (the 1970 version) was on TV on New Year’s Day so I insisted that we watched that. It’s such a great film, and probably my favourite children’s film. Find it and watch it, if you’ve never seen it (or even if you have). I may have annoyed Mrs Barefoot a bit by repeatedly predicting the dialogue

Christmas Eve was the church carol service, which is always a great event. There were carols, readings and short dramatic pieces. And a community choir piece, starring yours truly in the choir and Mrs. Barefoot on the piano. At the end of the service all the characters came together around the minister’s six-week old baby. A silent "oh how cute" ran round the church as everyone realised that it was a real baby.

We’d invited some friends to the service (and back to ours after) and one of my friends asked me "where did the baby come from?". She quickly added "Obviously, I know where babies come from".

Candlelit carol services always remind me of this episode from my childhood.

We thought Child 3 might like a molecule modelling kit for Christmas, and were right. She spent most of Christmas afternoon putting molecules together and testing us (I didn’t get beyond H₂0 and CO₂). Not that she is geeky or anything.

I’d ordered it a few weeks previously, and had a slightly awkward moment when she glanced at my computer screen just as I was about to hit "order". I made some excuse about looking for images of 3-D models to help me understand the 2-D drawings she had been showing me earlier. I think I got away with it.

Even at the age of 17, Child 3 leaves a plate out for Santa – though it may be more for my benefit than Santa’s! This year he was given a mince pie and a glass of port. Child 1 had a couple of friends round and I asked one of them to write a thank-you note so Child 3 wouldn’t recognise the handwriting!

The weekend before Christmas we went to a choir concert that our friend was singing in. She was probably the youngest member of the choir; her presence brought the average age down to about 68! It was a good concert, with a varied programme of several short and light pieces. And mince pies and mulled wine at the interval.

The programme included a solo of "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas" (a song, incidentally, of which I have heard two separate versions while out shopping). The singer got a bit flustered towards the end, singing the wrong words followed by the right words. Consequently she tried to squeeze ten bars into an eight-bar phrase. Luckily the accompanist realised what was going on and adjusted accordingly so I don’t think anyone (other than me) noticed.

Back at work now – though it seems like a lot of people have taken these three days off. Traffic is so much lighter on my commute, I’m saving at least 10-15 minutes per journey.