My dearest darling- That partridge, in that lovely little pear tree! What an enchanting, romantic, poetic present! Bless you & thank you. Your deeply loving Emily Everyone knows the ` Twelve days of Christmas`, but not as rewritten by John Julius Norwich in this delightful correspondence, which records the daily thank-you letters from one increasingly bemused young lady to her unseen admirer. & who but Quentin Blake could exploit the full comic possibilities of this hilarious debacle as first birds, then maids & finally the full percussion section of the Liverpool Philharmonic create mayhem in the calm of an English country Christmas?