The end of another year- but all is tickety boo.

Mid- November and all is well.

Oh well. Here we are again in mid November and all is well, The end of the year may be rapidly approaching but what a year hey! It's been a momentous, epic, monumental and incredible year. In fact I'm still catching my breath. Did all of those events during 2016 really happen or was it a figment of my imagination? I may have to take stock of 2016 and wonder why and how the things that took place really did unfold before our disbelieving eyes.

And yet here we are now in the middle of November and the same old concerns and cares are beginning to make their presence felt. The supermarket shelves are groaning with huge islands of chocolate boxes and the tills are ringing like those old church bells in the local village. Yes folks its Chanukah and Christmas. That time of the year! As a proud Jew I love Chanukah. You get to eat those sweet, sticky doughnuts, shamelessly indulging yourself in the pleasures of the palate and cholesterol. It's bliss I tell you. Sheer bliss.

Then we light the Chanukah candles and the children have a wonderful time. Then there are latkes, the glorious potato cake confection that stimulates the senses and satisfies the craving for more sweet and savoury things, the things that are supposed to be bad for you and help you put on weight. Then we begin to reproach ourselves cruelly for eating too much and drinking too much. It's almost a self fulfilling prophecy and it's been like this for as long as I can remember. It's a well entrenched tradition and a familiar way of life.

November though is like a preparation and rehearsal for the December revelry. Next week I celebrate my birthday, the inevitable passage of time, an appointment with the passing of another year, the celebration of your specific day. I'll be a  year older all being well, wiser hopefully but the years are passing very dramatically and my body is no longer as able and willing as it used to be. Thanks to our wonderful daughter I've followed my new fitness regime with an almost meticulous attention to detail.

 I now feel much fitter than I used to be and every so often break into painstaking jogs and then gentle running. It is, I have to tell you, dedication beyond the call of duty. I don't have to run but I now feel  a renewed surge of energy that I thought had deserted me. The bones may be creaking and protesting but the heart is ticking like a carriage clock on a mantelpiece. In fact I think it's pounding away like a well tuned Formula One racing car. Lewis Hamilton would be so proud of my heart. I feel re-vitalised, ready to climb mountains and swim rivers,- even run a thousand marathons rather like those enthusiastic London Marathon runners.

Anyway back in Sainsbury's people rush around the aisles with all the urgency that normally manifests itself in November. Perhaps it'll begin to quieten down at the beginning of December but I somehow doubt it. November has this predictable lull before the storm air about it.  Most of us are filled with an unspoken fear and foreboding and it's roughly now that steady panic overtakes the shoppers of Britain, a mindset that insists that we must buy everything, a frantic necessity to empty the shelves. But hey it's November and it's almost December and you feel almost obliged to join in with the fun.

How much festive fare can we pile high into our ever expanding shopping trolleys? And yet we wouldn't have it any other way. On second thoughts I love this time of the year. There is a crispness in the air, an atmosphere that is simply magical and a wonderful  anticipation of another year's ending. Seriously I love this time of the year. It may be winter outside but in my heart it's spring. Everybody has got a spring in their spritely step and all are buoyant. People are great, dogs and cats are brilliant and the world is just rich and abundant. But then that should always be the case anyway.

I don't care about the falling temperatures, the early morning frost, the hint of a chill in the air. Everybody is looking forward to the festivities and I may be tempted to dive into the Serpentine on Christmas Day. Or maybe not. Families are huddling together around a roaring log fire, Donald Trump will be the new President of the United States and the new Lord Mayor of London looks suitably dignified. It doesn't get any better. November means that the end of  the year is almost upon us but not quite. It may now feel dark and wintry outside. but we're snug, comfortable and life is very smooth.

Of course the trees have shed their leaves and the bleakness outside may be too much for those who cherish warm summer days. But it's good to be alive.  The branches though have a very bare and naked desolation about them. It almost seems as though somebody has stolen their clothes or robbed them of their worldly possessions. They look nervous and exposed, somehow wishing that spring could come back as quickly as possible. They look, dare I say it, inconsolable and bereft. November is here but winter still seems like another country. The first day of  Chanukah this year falls on Christmas Day. You couldn't make it up. Bring it on.