I've been to the Panto. Oh no you haven't. Oh yes I have!

This afternoon we went through to Bath to see Jack and the Beanstalk at the Theatre Royal. It was our first visit and I was taken with the main house. Chris Harris put in another brilliant performance as Dame Trott and I was particularly amused by Jon Monie as Simple Simon.

It's been a few years since we went to the pantomime. We saw a few at the Bristol Old Vic when the girls were young. But then the Old Vic switched to staging plays at Christmas. They were very good but didn't generate the same atmosphere as the panto. It's proper family entertainment. Something for everyone and jolly good fun!

So today was a bit of a trip down memory lane.

Frosty the Snowman

I work part time as a secretary in a primary school. Every year, on the last day of term before the Christmas holidays, my job share and I dress up for work. We've been Christmas trees and elves and this year we were snowmen (although one wee Reception child thought I was Santa!).

We're already working on next year's costume, which will be kept a closely guarded secret until the day.

Who's Bright Idea Was All This?

We are in the throes of major house renovations. It started in the autumn with the installation of a new combi boiler and two new radiators in the living and dining rooms, followed by a loft conversion, continuing with the installation of double glazing to the front of the house, preceding the rendering and painting of the facade and finishing with the stripping of the ground floor floorboards and the tiling of the kitchen and bathroom.

If I tell you that we live in a fairly untidy house packed to the gunnels with stuff that we should have got rid of years ago, you will begin to realise the scale of our predicament. But the sheer horror of it all will only set in when I add that, during the course of these proceedings we have also had to deal with a week's visit from our French exchange student, my younger daughter's exacerbated eczema, the death of my husband's mother, a leaky shower and the flu which laid my younger daughter and me low for most of last week. Happy days!

Still, we're all alive and (relatively) well and the house will look marvellous when it's finished - or at least that's what I keep telling myself. And sometimes I even believe it!