Initially, we hadn’t planned on Christmas shopping this weekend, having bought our train tickets for next weekend for the Black Friday offers. However, a train strike cancelled these plans and we went a week earlier as we have busy diaries in December and I didn’t wish to drive as an alternative. Fortunately, I don’t think we really missed any of the special offers, as the one thing I needed to purchase had a price match offer in John Lewis and I got it at the best price I have seen. More of the shopping trip later.

This time of year there does appear to be a lot of special events and this week was Children In Need. I didn’t watch the evening programme as I was prepping for a busy weekend but we did some special events in school. I was really pleased with my new Pudsey t-shirt, as a SEN teacher, the sign and braille letters were perfect for my role. We also had our son’s Annual Review on CIN day, so yes I did appear on screen wearing Pudsey ears and t-shirt. We were so proud of his progress and his confidence and happiness at school.

On Saturday morning, I was at parkrun with my daughter who is continuing with her DofE volunteering. I had run a flat route pre parkrun, and there is always a simple pleasure in running during sunrise, how the run starts in the dark and ends in the light, especially as it was a beautifully winter sunny day. I had chosen to run a flat route as my knee injury wouldn’t cope with the hilly parkrun. However, I discovered that it wouldn’t cope with the flat route either and I have to admit that I was on painkillers for a few days after too. There was a special guest at the parkrun, as the founder of parkrun, Paul Sinton Hewitt ran and my daughter was on time keeping duties with his lovely wife, Jo. He was kind enough to have a photo taken with my daughter, a lovely memento for her DofE portfolio.

Our shopping trip started early on Sunday, so no lie ins this weekend as I was up at 6am both mornings. We arrived before the shops opened so had a festive drink in Costa as we waited for them to open for browsing. Our main focus was John Lewis and as is tradition we started in the Christmas decorations department. It was all lovely and sparkling but something nagged at me about the plastic and glitter, I am definitely more focused on decorations made from natural materials and I do wish to use more fresh flowers this year. My daughter’s main present was a bottle of Chanel perfume, she saw and sampled the perfumes last Christmas and has had one on her wish list since. It was special to go to the Chanel counter and choose her perfume, not only did she get to choose her favourite, Chanel Mademoiselle but it was all wrapped up and presented to her in a Chanel bag. It felt like a rite of passage, and I feel she has excellent taste. We also picked up some clothes for her and although we browsed in a lot of shops, we didn’t buy a lot. I prefer using independent shops and local artisan and producers and there are a couple of local markets which I am looking forward to visiting in the next couple of weeks.