I DIDN’T have Great Expectations for TV viewing over the festive season which is perhaps just as well.

Thankfully a quick poll among colleagues found I wasn’t alone. Most of us admitted to having been far too busy to worry over much about what the schedulers had to offer us.

But I was quietly relieved to discover that the other reason for the office’s low TV viewing figures was simple. None of us could find much we wanted to watch.

Why is it that programmers seem to think that scheduling at this time of year is a piece of cake? In other words that we will all be took busy downing said cake to notice what trifles are packing the rest of the menu.

I managed to find a few morsels to savour but don’t expect to be dining out on any of my seasonal TV experiences.

Since I was with friends on the big day itself, I happily agreed to join them as Downton Did Christmas.

And pretty neatly they tied it all up too. There was that romance (Lady Mary and cousin Matthew) two series long and finally sorted plus the beginnings of a campaign to free the Downton One (Bates, m’ lord’s valet) which is sure to take all of series three. Do keep up.

I’d pencilled in a diary date with Dickens but found I couldn’t live up to Expectations and ducked out after the first chapter.

Feeling guilty at not going the full three episodes I tuned in for the finale of Great Expectations only to find that I really should have trusted my instincts.

With the exception of Gillian Anderson who was riveting as Miss Haversham, a breathy, beautiful abandoned bride, I found nothing in the BBC’s new adaptation that bettered my memories of David Lean’s monochrome masterpiece of the 1940s.

Lean’s film set a benchmark for transferring classic stories to the big screen. And anyway, who can feel comfortable with an actor playing Pip who looks like he should be in a boy band?

There was much more satisfaction to be found as I discovered in switching off, catching up with family and friends and conjuring up daft new outdoor games.

If you saw a group of adults and small children jumping up and down in puddles, that was us.

Somehow the chatter as we walked led to us testing out the theory that one of those inviting black holes might just be deep enough to swish us all off to the sunshine of Australia!

I know, the things you do to entertain tinies on a freezing cold, wet day when you know that getting them into the fresh air is just the best thing!

But if you fancy trying this out yourself, make sure you are the one wearing the tallest pair of wellies.

As New Year arrived, with bucketloads of even worse weather, I Endeavoured to settle down and give those nice TV schedulers one more chance.

I confess, I didn’t make it easy. A prequel of a much-loved TV detective series was always going to be a big ask.

And young actor Shaun Evans certainly landed himself in the hot seat (of a classic Jaguar, lucky boy) as he filled in some of the back story of Morse, the detective created by Colin Dexter and brought to life by the late John Thaw.

Endeavour, a two hour pilot of what looks a cinch to return as the big new detective series from ITV, offered plenty of clues about the serious intentions behind this new take on an old favourite.

Barrington Pheloung’s familiar Morse-code theme tune dominated the soundtrack along with Wagner, Mozart and Madam Butterfly, the latter signalling that women were always a problem for our bachelor detective.

The production seemed at times to be in danger of buckling under the weight of all that back-filling.

The plot, never one that would have seriously taxed the more mature Morse, deserved a better finale than the one that had been staring us in the face since our old friend jealousy sidled into view pretty early on.

For me though, the reason to welcome ITV stumping up more money to turn this one-off into another long-term tourist attraction for Oxford, not that it needs one, came in the company of actor Roger Allam who for me held the whole story together as the rather bizarrely named Det Insp Fred Thursday.

This is the man who hands back the troubled young Morse his letter of resignation, introduces him to the delights of real ale and Jaguars and steals many a scene. I’ll Endeavour to stick with any series, for his sake.