So the alarm goes off and I’m not proud but I do that thing everyone does now, as their eyelids slide open like slow shutters on shop windows – I grab my iPhone, check the time, check the weather, check emails then sit bolt upright on reading the email from the incredible online literary journal, ‘ink sweat and tears’ advising they were taking my poem, ‘the cumquats of christmas past’ for publication in their ‘Twelve Days of Christmas Feature.’  So honoured to be in such fine company as the other poets who made this list.  Poems will start to appear on http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk from 22 Dec 2017 – 2 Jan 2018.  My ‘cumquat’ poem will appear on December 26.  This calls for a pre-christmas eggnog.  And just to get us all in the mood, here’s a photograph of a glasgow white christmas, courtesy of my brother andrew whitelock’s incredible eye and well, his camera, obviously.