So there you have it. Now it's off my chest. Just for one moment you upset me slightly, Disturbed my usual calm serenity, Got in my head, and set me vainly wishing For April, and the country, and one other... But that is over. I am whole again. Good-bye! I shall not send this letter now. I find I have forgotten you already. RETROSPECT Looking back on the past year I can see that it has been (as usual) one of noble endeavour--frequently frustrated, but invariably well meant. In accordance with the custom of the newspapers I have set down here its record of achievement in the different provinces of art, bicycling and the like; and I offer this to the public in full confidence of its sympathy and appreciation. ART We have had our photographs taken for the first time for many years, and if the result isn't art I don't know what is. The photographer said: "Would you like them _en silhouette_ or straight-fronted?" We said in French that we had thought of _carte-de-visite_. The result is a sort of three-quarter face with one wing forward, and the man insists that we must have looked like that once. The only other achievement in the world of art is a moleskin waistcoat of some distinction. I had no idea that moles were that colour, but the man swore that when you had taken the feathers out of them you found quite a different coloured skin underneath. As he has been there and I haven't, I cannot argue with him. Altogether a good year for art. BICYCLING At the beginning of the year our eldest brother sold our bicycle for a sovereign and gave the sovereign to our second brother. A bad year for bicycling therefore. SCIENCE (I thought for the moment science began with a C, which is why it comes in here.) Several important discoveries have been made in the year. For instance, the small white raspberries in tapioca pudding are _meant_ to be there; you always thought that they had got in from some other dish, when the cook wasn't looking. And when your watch gains a foot you don't put the regulator to A because it is advancing, but to R because you want to retard it. (Or else the other way round--I have forgotten again. Anyhow, I found out that I had been doing it wrong.) Another discovery made in the early part of the year was the meaning of the phrase "Bank Rate Unchanged," but that is too technical to explain here. A record year for science. FINANCE The old system of keeping no accounts and never filling in the counterfoils of cheques again answered admirably. GAMES