Nativity

If you're ever organising a children's nativity play here's a tip - don't give the shepherds crooks. Crooks can be used for sword fights and for poking wise men in the ribs.

Have just returned from rehearsal, nativity involves 2 short plays, one for little children & one for older ones. J & Adam are narrators in first & wise men in second. As most of children didn't turn up last week they rehearsed first play 3 times & second twice with children who were already over-excited & fractious before they even began. Reassured organiser that it'll be alright for the performance tomorrow, but she didn't look all that convinced and went off muttering something about 'those crooks have to go'. Think I'll buy chocolates for J's Sunday school teachers, they do a tough job.

Carol service very nice in snow last night but toes cold!

J about to meet up with Tim & Adam on the common & we're going Christmas shopping. Yippee! (That's a sarcastic yippee, by the way)

Have just ordered some curtains for dining room, wonder if there's any possibility at all of getting them by Christmas.

Lots of snow!

Woke up to several inches of snow! Didn't find out school was closed until 7.40 so had to start getting ready but I was wondering if it was safe to drive or not. J was just so disappointed when he found out school was shut! He was straight out to play in snow. He's just phoned Tim but apparently junior school is open.
We're meant to be going to an outdoor carol service tonight. Brrr! Could be quite atmospheric though.

Snow

It's snowing!

Cold frosty morning

Cold & frosty here but only a few flakes of snow. Drove back way to school through country lanes, very pretty & beautiful sunrise over frosty fields but roads very icy.

Had really good time at P's housegroup social. Was billed as 'mulled wine & mince pies' which was bit of prob for me as I'm off alcohol at moment because of tablets I'm taking & I don't like mince pies but they had mulled apple juice & chocolate brownies as well. Yum. Some nice people to talk to, sadly had to leave early to pick up J from scouts Christmas party. Boys emerged with variously shaped blobs of dough from which oozed mincemeat. They described these as mince pies which they'd made themselves. They enjoyed it anyway.

Yesterday had coffee morning Christmas lunch which was very nice except the fruit crumble which was a bit stodgy. P came too which was nice.

I really have to get on with my Christmas letter now. Don't know what to write!

Christmas catching up on me

Went to brilliant concert Sat night, scouts carol concert last night, scouts party tonight, P's housegroup social also tonight, Xmas lunch tomorrow, carols Fri night, nativity rehearsal Sat am, nativity performance Sunday (J & Adam both wise men & narrators due to lack of interest from other older children) and I still haven't written a single card or finished my Christmas letter.

Help!!

Sleepy day

Today P was at junior school as a governor, mainly helping escort chuldren to & from carol concert at church. He kindly took J to school for me. I woke up with a headache so took 2 paracetamol & decided to have a bit more sleep. I woke up at 12.40! I must have needed the sleep. Actually last week was really busy, I was out every single day.

Highlights of the week were:

• going to Christmas fair at J's junior school on Friday (the children seemed tiny!)

• going to village Christmas fair on Saturday at which J & other scouts were doing car washing, this is a really nice event with beautifully decorated stalls & lots of home-made cakes & chutney & a really good book stall, I went over & chose a pile of books then P said 'I'll take the ones I bought earlier now please' & added another huge pile to my lap, people were laughing at me I was so laden

• our delayed bonfire night on Saturday evening, one of J's new friends who I'll call 'Paul' came as well as Tim & Adam, Paul seems a very nice polite & sensible sort of boy & got on well with Tim & Adam which was a relief. Sadly it did start raining a bit which didn't bother the boys but the grown-ups felt a bit wet & miserable. As usual the kids showed more interest in sparklers & glow sticks than the amazing, multi-coloured expensive rockets & fountains. What we weren't anticipating was one of them (mentioning no names) sticking hot sparklers into the glow sticks so the glow goo came oozing out. This same child then took a bag from his pocket & said 'I'm just going to light my home-made sparkler' 'You're what???' I yelled 'Someone stop him!' His home-made firework turned out to be a stick. I was really glad Becky was there to help keep them under control.
  

Then we had baked potatoes indoors & got warm & the boys played bowling on the wii.

Have to go it's dinner time.