Christmas storms

I was awake early this morning and the news was full of the very windy and wet weather set to batter the British Isles. We even had a weather warning in our area for high winds and rain, not the best of days to venture out to finish the Christmas shopping!

But Keith and I did go out as Sophie had some of her friends around today and wanted them to sit in the living room, eat pizza and watch DVDs! We went off to Meerkat Harborough at midday and braved the foul weather for a couple of hours. We called in to see Duncan and his merry band to get some wine to take around to Mum and Dad's house on Christmas Day. The shop was packed with people looking for wine to match the turkey and Nick picked out an Italian red and a Chablis for me.

I bought Mikey two little stocking fillers and then we ventured home but on the way I remembered I wanted to buy my Mum an arrangement of flowers so we headed off to the garden centre by Harlestone Firs. It was quieter than I expected but I couldn't find anything I liked so we just had a mooch about and chuckled at all the sales prices tagged onto the trees and lights. They'll probably be even cheaper tomorrow! Finally we decided to head home and watched TV in our bedroom, marvelling at the sound of the wind and rain outside. It was a really violent night!

It really wasn't the sort of night to venture out into town to see the Pantomime! We picked Mum and Dad up at 6pm (Keith was more than happy to stay home and watch the football) and headed off to the Derngate theatre to see Sleeping Beauty starring Linda Lusardi and her husband Sam Kane. I can honestly say it was the best Panto I've ever seen and had something for everyone. The highlight for all of us were the 3D effects which really were like being at a high-tech show in Universal. Lots of scary creatures (spiders, snakes, horrible insects) loomed out of the stage at us making everyone scream and squirm in their seats! It was truly brilliant! As well as that, the comic scenes were very funny and the King performed some great magic tricks so the whole show, with the fantastic costumes and dancers, was very entertaining and they've certainly brought the traditional pantomime into the 21st century!

When it was time to go home the rain had started again and back home our string of lights almost came down. It was certainly a wild and woolly start to Christmas!