Christmas Fun?

A weekend of Christmas fayres..... Luckily JJ seemed to have overcome his whingey baby syndrome on Saturday so the day out at Wimpole Hall Christmas Craft Fayre went very well. The fayre showed off the best of the region's local craftsmen/women, from wooden toy crafts to watercolour paintings, christmas nicknacks and decorations to cakes and snacks, pottery to glassware. It was lovely to see so many independent crafts people under one sodden roof. Obviously being the UK it bucketed it down in the morning, but the lovely people at Wimpole had been expected this and organised for some lovely marquees and even lovelier heating! What fun. The kids were entertained with a puppet show and puppet-making. What a great idea. JJ is too little for this at the moment, but had he been older he would have loved it.

Did we buy anything I hear you ask? Well, no, apart from a pork-pie to fortify the appetite created by looking at all the lovely goodies on offer.

Today we stayed more locally and went to Harpenden Farmers' Market. An amazing market held every 4th Sunday of the month - well worth a visit if you've never been. It was the Christmas market this month as it is the last one before christmas, obviously. It was great; fired up the spirits and made us feel very Christmassy. We made room for a delicious Bassingthorpe Beef burger as we ambled around. Did we buy anything? Well apart from some lamb shanks for our curry tonight and some sausages, no, but I could've spent a fortune on Christmas goodies (including some beautiful hand-made wreaths and wicker baskets). As I'm on maternity leave I don't have a fortune, so that's not possible, shame!

To finish I would like to say how fantastic these fayres/markets were - we came away with a glow in our hearts (and bellies). So what happenned to the St Albans Christmas Fayre/turning-on of the lights last weekend? What a shambles. The market seemed cheap and the fairground rides/stalls nasty and sadly the event seemed to bring out some 'interesting' people. And if you hung around for the lights to go on (as we sadly did) then you would have been truely disappointed. Whoever employed the lighting technicians should hang their heads in shame. They came on sporadically in patches, some not at all, and there were no cheers whatsoever. Actually it was all rather embarassing, luckily I wasn't the one who had employed the lighting guys.....