Don't we look festive?

And so it starts again...despite the impending fourth austerity budget which will be unveiled over not one, but TWO days next week and despite the fact that even this bad news could be rendered meaningless in the doomsday scenario of the collapse of the euro and despite the fact that I am a grumpy pessimist at the best of times...despite all this I still have a good feeling about this Christmas....

We have a bit of corporate stuff going on earlier than usual, we have plenty of good wines in stock, Mrs Grapevine is mad busy with the hampers, I just feel we are in reasonable shape.

Also, now that I have bought a 25kg bag of rock salt, we know it is not going to snow for about 10 years, so we won't have the snow-induced collapse in business that caught almost everybody out last year.

In the meantime, we are having our Christmas Wine Club Get-Together next Wednesday night in Ouzo's - great food, great wines, great craic & great value - get your place booked!