Friday: At school, John and Rose went off to the station (with the rest of the school) to wave flags at Prince Charles. It was very exciting, apparently. He talked to both of them in groups and Rose even answered one of his questions. At home, Isabel Wakeman dropped in for coffee, I played badminton with Simon (lost, but it was very close and an excellent game), Cindy went into town to get a bit more Christmas shopping, we had a nice lunch together, I picked up the new curtains for the back room and for Toby's room, Rose sang with the school choir at McArthur Glen, then she went to trampolining and eventually it was time for bed!

Saturday: Toby played rugby for school against All Saints and beat them resoundingly, then went to Tom's for the rest of the day. Cindy, John, Rose and I got the 9:25 train to Birmingham to watch the Gymnastics World Cup Final. In spite of being called a World Cup Final, it can't have been a very important competition, because lots of the big names that we saw at the Olympics weren't there. It was exciting being at a proper competition though, and when British gymnasts were involved you got some sort of idea of what the atmosphere must be like at a big competition with lots of supporters for all the different competitors. We saw the Men's floor, which was great, rings, women's vault, men's pommel - I can't tell who is good or not in this event at all, it all looks the same to the untutored eye, and the women's asymmetric bars, with Beth Tweddle taking part. Here are the results. We got a taxi back to the station because Cindy had found the walk through town to the National Indoor Arena too much, and just as we were getting in the taxi, John spotted two Brazilian gymnasts signing autographs. One of them was the winner of the men's floor event, and they were just out on the pavement going off to wherever! He got their autographs, jumped in the taxi and we got the 4pm train home.
After fish and chips for tea, Cindy and I went off to Judith and Martin's Christmas party for an hour.

Sunday: Cindy had a lie in while the rest of us went off to Meeting. Toby went swimming with Link Group, then dashed home to have lunch and go out and play football. I don't know where he gets the energy from. After lunch Pauline and Lal dropped in with Christmas pressies, and stayed for tea. Cindy made scones and swiss roll. John and Rose have started making themselves felt stockings for Father Christmas to fill. I hope they aren't too large! Fungus the Bogeyman is on the telly. Bedtime soon.