ONLY NINETEEN DAYS TO GO..........

until 21st December - the shortest day.

Henry our retriever has been sad just lately - the days are very short, the evenings long; not much sun around even though it`s not been cold. Each time he goes for a walk - across the fields, through the woods and the orchards of mid-Kent - we both get mud-splattered, wet, bedraggled, so he doesn`t like this time of year any more than I do.

I`m convinced I suffer from a mild form of Seasonal Affective Disorder, but being the sad old git I have now become, maybe it`s just the way I am. I do find the dark days of winter to be difficult to handle - I long for the summers, the long, sunny days drifting into langourous evenings and so I count the days until the shortest day of the year.....only 19 days away now, after which the days once more begin to lengthen.

I have discovered that there is a S.A.D Society, who give advice to sufferers about the symptoms, the causes and possible treatment for the condition. I admire their devotion to helping others, but they must literally be the sadest society going. I`ve trawled their website in the vain hope that they might advise me to get a life, fly off to Australia, chat up Rachel Hunter now she`s `free` or even ask my son to arrange an evening with Kylie....but all they suggest is that I buy a lightbox and join in with others at meetings where they stand around being miserable. I don`t think so somehow.

Dylan Thomas wrote a stirring poem for his dying father, which included the advice to `rage, rage at the fading of the light.` Well, I`ve done my share of raging these past few weeks and - another sign of ` age-related SADness` - it seems that there is more and more to rage against these days. In material terms, I can complain of nothing...and I don`t. But I look around the world from my perspective of a comfortable chair in a disintegrating `society` and find very little to lift the spirits.

However, reports from the antipodes (where I have my own correspondent) suggest that there is every hope for a bright future both within the gentle suburbs of Adelaide and the cricket ground, where England have regained their cricketing pride. I have long suspected that God might well be Australian - who else would arrange to have the date for celebrating his only begotten son in the middle of summer, whilst we over here are condemned to trudge through our own yuletide festivities in the midwinter gloom? Good on ya` mate!