THE news that our eldest daughter, Bryony, is expecting her first child next year, could not come at a more appropriate time than Christmas.

She could, of course, arrange to hang on and actually deliver next Christmas Day, as that would be even more appropriate, but physiologically impossible.

"I'm having a baby, not an elelphant, Mother," was the withering response to my suggestion.

Baby will, of course, have to fit in with a very busy life-style. Bryony is in the thick of delivering other people's babies, as she is working on an obstetrics ward, but, in February, she will be moving to a paediatric placement, so she can learn about coughs, colds, childhood sneezes and diseases at first hand.

John looked rather shocked at the prospect of being called granddad.

"I'm too young," he said, and even more upset at the thought of sleeping with a granny.

Meanwhile, I am thinking about Glam Grans at Butlins-type competitions. There could be whole new lifestyle opportunities coming up. I am not, however, to be trusted with day-to-day management of the new baby. My son-in-law's parents are retiring next year, and as they live close to Bryony and Chris, they have been earmarked as the regular baby-minders.

As we have no intentions of retiring for very many years, and I am still looking to make a fortune somewhere, somehow, we are to be holiday minders. I think Chris considers me to be a possible bad influence on any child of his. He is a serious chap and harbours suspicions that his mother-in-law is frivolous and scatty. Spot on, according to John.

Although it is the only baby on the horizon at the moment in the family, the farm still keeps churning out new life. One of the Aberdeen Angus-cross heifers had not come in calf during the spring and summer, despite running with the bull the previous year. All of her sisters had reared a calf through the year, and are now back in calf, and their summer calves weaned. John had even rung the animal movements section and organised for this particular heifer to be culled under the thirty months scheme. And then he noticed a swelling in her udder.

"That heifer's bagging up," he said, delighted that she was in-calf and need not be culled.

This morning, the calf was born. Bit of a struggle - it did not intend to come into this world in a straightforward fashion. Instead, the calf was coming backwards and John had to go into full bare-chested, arm up the cow and then ropes on mode. Very telegenic. After a final heave, and a slurp (turn the volume down at this stage of the programme) the calf dropped on to the strawed floor of the fold yard, amidst an admiring herd of cows. Frustrated mothers everyone one of them.

The heifer is tired, but thrilled to bits with herself and her baby. John has made them a small stable at the end of the fold yard to prevent the adoring onlookers from trampling the baby to death. The stars are shining in through a hole in the fold yard roof. Away in a manger it may not be. Close enough for us though.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Updated: 11:08 Thursday, December 27, 2001