"MARLEY was dead to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to."

So begins A Christmas Carol. Yet by page 21, by the time that Scrooge has admonished his nephew, chased the charity box rattlers, thrown his ruler at the carol singer and terrified his poor clerk - "You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose" - Jacob Marley walks, ponderously, again.

Old Ebenezer's reaction - his chain reaction, it may be said - was still not to believe his eyes. Why, asked the ghost, did he doubt his senses?

"Because a little thing affects them," said Scrooge. "A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an undercooked potato."

Then he essays a joke, of which he seems improbably proud. "There's more of gravy than of grave about you," says Scrooge, "whoever you are."

It was a bit like that last Sunday. Having arranged to attend what promised to be a most convivial carols by candlelight at Coverham, in North Yorkshire, I became exceedingly unwell that morning with what appeared to be food poisoning.

It could have been a crumb of cheese or a blot of mustard, perhaps even the festive spirit, but a slice of very good corned beef pie the previous evening remains the number one suspect.

Such ill-timed indisposition was also the reason that we missed the thanksgiving service and subsequent knees up on Wednesday following the civil partnership ceremony between Chris Wardale, Vicar of Holy Trinity in Darlington, and his long-time partner Malcolm Macourt.

It was the service at which Dr David Jenkins, the former Bishop of Durham, talked memorably of assuming his "repel all borders" position. "A wonderful occasion," reports Chris, his morning after email timed at 5.04am.

Coverham, at any rate, is near Middleham - racing country. The church of Holy Trinity, originally 13th century but now largely Victorian, is said to be the only one in England with a waterfall in the graveyard but is officially redundant.

It's owned by the Churches Conservation Trust, they who cleverly coined the collective noun an "inspiration" of churches, and used for special services about four times a year.

Brendan Giblin, Middleham's rector, is said also to be a racing man - horses for courses, as they may say elsewhere - and in welcoming our proposed attendance sounded a pretty good bet himself. The Rt Rev James Bell, Bishop of Knaresbrough, was to lead the service.

Alas, the slightest increase in temperature scrambles whatever passes for this column's brains like a dozen grade A eggs.

"Ring Mr Biglin," we'd urged from the sick bed.

He wasn't in the directory.

"Try Google, then."

Like a latter day St Peter, Google denied all knowledge of the man.

Thus Mr Andy Lamb was left alone to apologise for emetic absence and to take his splendid photographs while, stirred slowly like a comatose Christmas pudding, the poor column is left for only the second time in 12 years to write 800 words about a service at which it wasn't even present.

The first, in 1996, had been at St Edmund's in Bearpark, west of Durham, when we'd arrived so very late that it seemed rude to interrupt. The Rev Leslie Barron having also been given charge of Ushaw Moor, they'd brought forward the starting time.

"For all his undoubted excellence," we wrote at the time, "Mr Barron has so far been unable to master being in two places at once."

It was the occasion on which the lady of this house claimed, a little unfairly, that the entire column had been written from a two minute perusal of the church notice board.

It is true, nonetheless, that the biblical assertion about not being able to build bricks without straw seems sometimes to be challenged hereabouts.

St Edmund was said at the time to be challenging St George to become England's patron, George's exploits long having been considered somewhat apocryphal - a euphemism meaning that they never happened.

George's deeds were "known only to God", observed a 5th century Pope, profoundly.

Not even the At Your Service column would risk debates about the Holy Trinity, especially on Christmas Eve. Suffice that Mr Giblin reckons it to have been a lovely evening - "so many people said it was the perfect way to start Christmas," said the rector - and at that the annual candle must be extinguished.

If there is to be a Christmas carol at all, it's to go canny on the corned beef pie. And as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, every one.