It’s 4am and my alarm clock knows it. It hisses out a cobra-like prolonged piercing screech, takes a short breath, and hisses out again with increased vigour. In a matter of seconds the hissing reaches unbearable heights as the automatic crescendo takes over, and trillions of decibels advance on my eardrum, pummelling it mercilessly, urging it to send me the message to wake up, make a move and get started, which I do as quickly as I could even to stifle the abominable contraption that by then would have mercilessly stolen the rare lovely dream I had been clinging to.

Thank God, it is not often that I have to subject myself to this bad mood setting alarm clock trauma. Being an early riser by nature, I'm hooked on watching the sky eagerly adopting the magnificent hues of dawn as often as possible. The orange purple golden mixture of colours invariably reminds me of the splash and patterns we created with water colours as children, when we tried our hands at chromatography.

It was always the same colours at play, but the result was always a startling new palette of shades mapping out the divine symmetrical patterns. So the morning sky, in my view, is just a canvas on which the most fascinating acrobatics are daily carried out by the proud members of the spectrum, in an attempt to outdo the spectacle created the day before. And for this reason I hate to miss it so I leave my alarm clock safely in the drawer.

At Christmas time it’s a different story altogether. With all the preparations, shopping, cooking for large groups, and innumerable social activities to attend to, often extending deep into the night, sleeping  patterns are naturally changed and alarm clocks become indispensable , if one has to make time for that cooking spree intended to cater for your favourite group.

Three hours after the alarm clock attack, the marinated lamb, rabbit, and duck are roasting away in the wood oven in my garden, keeping a full dish of sizzling Maltese potatoes company. The mouth watering scents of  rosemary, thyme and fennel compete with the fragrance of the crackling burning , olive wood, for supremacy, all the time not realizing that the fantastic unique aroma the  mixture of all the little seasonings has created is simply better than any of the three seasonings could have created alone...

And then there is the little fruit cake growing away in the kitchen oven, lovingly suffusing the kitchen with the smell of my family's Christmas.

Dates, raisins and cherries, in a creamy rich cake mix, all anticipating  their imminent concealment by a snow white cloak of icing sugar dissolved in egg white and lemon juice.... on which we balance Father Christmas on his sledge and and his friends, the grim fir trees...

The guests are here, and I have to rush downstairs to welcome them.... I need to simmer the mulled wine just a teeny bit more... And toss in another cinnamon stick, and a few more cloves , nutmeg and aniseed... and perhaps more orange peel and lemon...and...the odd bay leaf...

Merry Christmas Everybody!