Close your eyes. Now remember the most memorable moment of the recent Christmas break ... Chances are it involved something not going to plan.

Close your eyes. Now remember the most memorable moment of the recent Christmas break ... Chances are it involved something not going to plan.

Here’s my own most vivid memory: a visit to our daughter Katherine in Bristol to celebrate her twentieth birthday, which started one windy December morning at Paddington. I was there with her brother to board the 10.30 a.m. GWR train to be on time for a jolly lunch.

But an incident near Reading meant that all trains on that line had been cancelled. One bus, lots of hanging about, two West Country trains, we arrived at Bristol Temple Meads five hours later, as the light was fading.

A rotten day, you might imagine. And yes, we were tired and hungry, and the restaurant we had booked had long stopped serving. Yet no cuppa tasted better as we toasted our girl in a Pret a Manger instead: I can still see her eyes sparkling with tears of gratitude that we had made it, our effort better than any present.

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