Carolling Capers

What a busy day! (now if that opening set of words doesn't bore you to death, then please continue to read!).

For some reason, I ended up having a bit of a lay-in this morning. The children, who are good sleepers anyway, woke up at 8.30am instead of 8am. The trouble is, and I don't know if any of you are the same, but the longer I lay in bed, the less I want to get out of it! Anyhoo, I dragged myself up for the day ahead.

I had a gazillion parcels to post this morning, and for once I was actually ahead of schedule and they had already been packaged up (impressed? I am!). Aardvark and Rhino were left to jump all over The Hubstacle for a few hours and I went on my jolly way. I was pleased to see that the Post Office queue was not around the block and, even better my 9 parcels didn't cost as much as I thought they would to send.

My next appointment was a 2 hour carolling stint in the foyer of the local Tesco. Not on my own, I might add but with people from my operatic society. This was in order to raise some funds for our next production (the one I auditioned for a short while ago) as its going to be quite an expensive one.

I don' think I have ever sung in such cold conditions, but it was quite impressive that it started to snow when we embarked on 'silent night'. Between us, we do have some amazing vocals, but I feel we were a little under-rehearsed and we could have actually put on a bit of a show rather than just standing there. Perhaps for next year.

The manager asked if we took requests and then promptly asked for Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire, very funny indeed - get back to stacking your shelves mister! Actually, he was a good sport and very nice.

So, we are merrily singing and the money is clattering in to the buckets. Two ladies and a little boy come out of the shop and the lad (aged 9) asks if he can sing with us (aww bless!), so he did some carols. Mum asks him if he wants to stay longer (he does) and they ask if he will be ok with us for 30 mins while they go down the road to the garden centre.

Now, we have no responsibility for this lad, but they are a nice family and we are nice people and it really makes a change that a kid of that age is wanting to join us and not chuck stuff at us. So everyone is happy and we continue warbling, within 15 mins of his mum leaving, he says he has to check his phone and goes outside. We don't see him again.

Mum and family turn up 10 minutes later and we have to break the news that the lad has gone AWOL. They go off looking but 30 mins past and still no sign, everyone now is worried.

Tesco are brilliant, they immediately check their CCTV to get the last sighting of him, mum texts all her friends to look out for him, the police are called and we all split up to do a search.

Mum tells me that he has never done anything like this before, and to she is a trooper - coping better than I ever would.

Said boy is found, having decided to go off and try to find the garden centre. It was a lovely reunion between mother and son (both crying), but mum was very firm with him and he was under no illusion that he was in trouble. I said to him that we were all glad he was safe, but I hoped that he learned a valuable lesson for the future.

So, end of carols, I had to leave straight away and I missed the coffee and mince pies Tesco put on for the others (gutted). I got home to find that things were relatively in order and the place was not wrecked (bonus) and this afternoon, we put up the Christmas Tree and decorations.

Up until today, I was having trouble feeling festive, but the carols, tree decorating and most of all, my children's little faces when the tree lights were put on was enough to get me in to the mood and start to enjoy the countdown to the big day!