I’ve had a good day today. I got some shop­ping done in the morn­ing. The town centre was very busy with Christ­mas shop­pers. In the after­noon, I took Jamie back into Stock­port to take part in a Lan­tern Parade organ­ised between three local schools. There was a very late start to this. But even­tu­ally we got star­ted and snaked our way through Mer­sey­way shop­ping pre­cinct. The chil­dren had all made their own lan­terns and the were a couple of large pieces made by some of the same people who made the ones used in the Manchester Com­mon­wealth Games cere­mon­ies. There was also a brass band with us who played as we made our way to Stockport’s his­tor­ical out­door mar­ket. We even­tu­ally made our way to St Mary’s church where there was a group of chil­dren play­ing per­cus­sion instru­ments, includ­ing some great bongo play­ing.

Once at the church a cere­mo­nial Dove of Peace was lit and car­ols were sung. We didn’t stop for the church ser­vice as we were get­ting a bit cold by that time and wanted to get back.

Back at home, Steve, Kim, Gra­ham, and Jackie were there along with all the kids; Thom, Bekki and Megan. We had some­thing to eat and a very enjoy­able even­ing. We did one of those pop quizzes that has been doing the rounds via email recently. We man­aged a mag­ni­fi­cent 94% between us! The kids watched a Spice Girls con­cert on tape amongst other things.

Thom also took some great pic­tures of the girls; I’m going to ask him if I can put them in the gallery.

All in all a good day. And it’s only the first day of my three week hol­i­day!