Sunday 30th November

On Friday evening there was the Walton Christmas Fair.  It didn’t seem to be advertised and we discovered it almost by accident.  The town is quite small but there is a sort-of town square with a tiny market there on Thursdays and they always have a Christmas tree and a few street lights.  There were a couple of rides for the kids and a few stalls, tombolas, RNLI and a Christmas curry and hot mulled wine and mince pies and roast chestnuts too.   Christmas music was playing and the Salvation Army were leading some Carol singing at the other end of the high street.

We really enjoyed it.  It had an amateur feel, so unlike the commercialism of big towns with their neat rows of painted sheds selling expensive Christmas gifts, this felt real and genuine somehow.  We stayed for an hour or so and then went for a meal in our local Thai Restaurant which is actually very good.  We know the couple who run it very well and we are treated almost as family.  We were just finishing out banana fritter (shared between the two of us) when we heard the unmistakable sound of fireworks.  We hurried down to the beach and watched a rather good firework display let off over the sea from the sea wall opposite the pier.  A lovely end to a lovely evening.

This morning I had a long walk along the windswept beach with the dogs, the sun struggling to rise out of the few scattered clouds.  We were all alone and the sea quite rough, the beach littered with bunches of seaweed and a few bits of driftwood, it was just perfect.  Sometimes it is at moments like this that you realize just how lucky you are.