STRANGE to be writing this message on the very last day of the year, as when many of these photos were taken, the month of December stretched out like a long and languid dream.

IN THESE LAST DAYS before Christmas, the city sidewalks are filled with last-minute shoppers, merry with the flush of cava and happy to be jostled about by the elbows and shopping bags of grandmothers with arms filled with gifts, and couples hoping to surprise one another with their thoughtfulness. Everywhere, there seems to be a feeling of good cheer.

FEW THINGS can conjure up the holiday spirit more than a perfectly decorated home and Ven House, the early-Georgian mansion built for a wealthy lawyer (who went bankrupt in the process) in the countryside near the Somerset village of Milborne Port, is exactly that.

SOUTH SEAS PEARLS hanging from gold starfish and belted brushed cashmere coats; miracle tonics and Bamboo Top Handle Baskets Bags — these are a few of our favourite things…

We live in a world so addicted to speed and noise, I realize every day that everything we do is in such a hurry. At work I observe clients always in a hurry. On the streets (with the exception of the Rive Gauche side of Paris where time seems to stand still) there is a rythme frenetique, as the locals say.

When we first moved to Spain three years ago, one of the only things that we lamented was that around the holiday season, the city just didn’t seem very festive. There was the usual carousel and a few smaller decorated trees here and there, but over all, the shops and streets never really got into the holiday spirit like they do in the UK.