Carols night

Billy's education was lacking.  He claimed he had never been to a Carols by Candlelight.  I think I have taken him once when he was little, but he obviously can't remember it.

So in order to rectify such a grevious oversight, we met my mum, sister and nieces at a local church run Carols night.  The weather hadn't been kind all day, but in an optimistic spirit, it went ahead outside as planned. 

Waiting to start - the empty spaces soon filled up quickly.

While waiting, we were 'entertained' by a local magician (whose jokes were corny when I first saw him more than 20 years ago - and he's still using the same material lol).  He's a local icon and does a lot of fundraising for charities.

Before the magician could even finish, the heavens opened up, and everyone ran for shelter in the hall / church.  While the organisers and helpers were busy transferring all of the equipment inside and trying to get Plan B underway, we had a surprise visitor with lollies for the kids.

Finally the carols got underway - by this time though, their planned programme had been tossed away and they just did about half a dozen of the more popular kid's ones - Jingle Bells, Rudolph etc. 

And the weather finally cleared enough for their grand finale - a quite spectacular fireworks display.

It was a fun night.  I felt sorry for the organisers that their plans were destroyed but people still seemed to have a good time (if slightly damp lol).  I'm not sure if that qualifies as a proper 'carols by candlelight' for Billy - we'll have to try again next year!