I EXPECT you've all been on tenterhooks again waiting for the famous Mullen Round Robin at Christmas!

This is the annual letter we send only to our very special friends - that is those who last year were kind enough not to tell us where we could shove it.

The year got off to a rather less than auspicious start when Alice suffered her worst bout of constipation for years and we had to get the plumber in.

Jules had a bad outbreak of his delusions of grandeur and was arrested while shoplifting in Harrods disguised as the Queen.

You know how talented our whole family are of course - because we never stop telling you!

Dora won the Moscow International Pianoforte Competition and Sheila the Ms Bethnal Green Annual Award for Halitosis.

Alan was befriended by the Vicar and gave up burglary for Lent. We all took a well-deserved early holiday and decided to drive up to Scotland.

The MacGregor family - well, you know how they've never taken a shine to us - spread a malicious rumour to the effect that the Loch Ness monster got wind of the fact we were coming and left a suicide note.

A big day in June when Camilla got married and not really spoilt by Alan drinking too much and being very unwell over the bridesmaids.

Reports that the reception degenerated into a drunken brawl were much exaggerated. Anyhow, things quietened down as soon as the police arrived.

Richard continues his tireless work for charity, giving three nights a week to read wine lists to the local Teetotallers Anonymous group - helpless victims that they are of their self-imposed addictions to all manner of strange beverages, as it might be tea, coffee, Bovril, or, in the worst cases, water.

Esmeralda had a baby in August - quite the ugliest little brute I've ever clapped eyes on. But there's no truth in the story that the nurses in the maternity ward had to go about in dark glasses.

Esme's sister Wanda decided to use her gap year to visit India and get some work experience as a tantric sex masseuse to German businessmen in Guru Bhagwash Rajpudding's ashram - he's the spiritual master with the 99 Mercedes and the grin that looks as if he's just been spruced with an oily rag.

She's always been religious has Wanda and when she gets back to England she wants to go in for being a priest in the Church of England. Well, I do say her experience should stand her in good stead.

They do say everything happens to the Mullens and it has been a truly eventful year once again! Sheila caught a cold in October and the goldfish died.

Charles got into the habit of cutting his toenails every Friday night and Elizabeth took to doing jigsaws. Eric still likes beans on toast before he goes train-spotting. Jack bought a DVD and a new mobile phone. He's only 36 but he learnt to say, "I'm on a train" - probably one spotted by Eric.

PS: I know some people say that those who send out round robins at this time of the year are just a bunch of charmless self-publicists who haven't got anything to talk about but themselves and their money and excellent careers and foreign holidays; and how one of them is a magistrate and another a supermodel.

Well, nothing could be further from the truth with the Mullens. We must be the most boring family in Britain. But that won't stop us.

*Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange