On Friday evening we decided to do our Big Christmas Shop. Last year we went late night shopping Milton Keynes and found that the shopping centre was pleasantly quiet, so we did the same thing this year, with the same result. There were other people about but the crowd levels were more Tuesday afternoon in March than Saturday afternoon in December. We made a big list before we went of everyone and everything and bought it all. Then to celebrate we had dinner at Frankie & Benny's in the Xscape building. I decided that that was my work Christmas party.

John Lewis were having a special day or something because they had all kinds of things going on. There was a chocolate fountain, a man demonstrating how to make fresh pasta, a jazz quartet, a fashion show and the Vauxhall male voice choir.

Mark found that after the anasthetic on his jaw had worn off, his teeth felt a lot better and hardly hurt at all. He has to go back on the 12th to be finished off but he is pleased with it so far.

We got an invitation to Amy's Christmas party on the 16th. I find that all the best party invitations have Health & Safety warnings on them. Etiquette question for the 21st century; does a comment on someone's blog count as an RSVP?

On Sunday afternoon we went for a walk into the village because Mark wanted to buy his comic (News of the World). They were turning on the Christmas lights and there was a street fair, it was really quite impressive how they'd managed to get an entire fun fair onto Station Road. I wish I'd taken my camera because right in front of the teacups ride, which was the width of the road, someone had felt it necessary to put a ROAD CLOSED sign. You don't say.