It seems that every weekend at the moment I'm away doing something exiting at some random place in the country. This weekend I've spent some time at my parents in Southwold. My main task for this weekend was to put up the huge array of external Christmas lights my parents own.

My parents take the commercial side of Christmas quite seriously and dress up the front of their house and garden in hundreds of lights. Every year they put some money aside to add to their external lights collection.

This time round though, they've had to completely rethink the layout of their lights. Throughout the course of this year, they have been working hard on landscaping their front garden. They had a professional garden designer draw up plans for a seaside themed garden and after months of toiling, they finally completed it about a week ago.

I have to say it's absolutely superb. The garden is mainly shingle to mimic a beach scene. Centerpiece is a rowing boat nicely planted up with sprawling green plants. To the right of that are three ships sails stuck into the ground. On the left of the garden is an old treasure chest and deck chair. Various pieces of drift wood and bits of ships that my parents found at the harbor have been scattered around to create an authentic aged feel. It really is an amazing garden and I'll have to upload photos soon.

The designer of the garden, Sally Wright, can be found in her own corner of the Internet at http://www.swgardendesign.co.uk and having seen her work first hand, I highly recommend her if you're redesigning your garden in the local area.

So the Christmas lights this year have had to be totally re-planned due to the new garden. We have the sails outlined in lights, icicles hanging from the guttering, reindeer pulling a sleigh under one window, Santa and a snowman under another, five robin birds perched on the groynes, net lighting over the fishing nets draped over the fence and another net of lights draped over the rowing boat as if a fishing net has been lain to dry. The treasure chest has lights in it that look like pirate treasure and there's a tree, a shooting star and some ringing bells on the front of the house.

It's an amazing sight every year, but with the garden this festive season I'm sure it's going to look better than ever. When I'm next up visiting my parents I'll take some photos and share the beauty with you all.