You may not realise it – such it the effect of Christmas on our regular weekly routines – that today is Friday. Blog day. Mind you Christmas brings with it its own routines with the result that Christmases tend to merge together in our memories. So how will I remember this particular Christmas? What was most distinctive (so far)? The answer has to be the snowball fight, the snowball fight in church. Each church tends to observe Christmas Day in different ways: for

Mangers, of course, are dangerous. I learnt this a few years back when I asked one of our local farmers for the loan of a manger in order to give a touch of realism to our nativity. “Yes, of course” and he delivered a manger to the church, a large iron manger. “Thank you – but do you have a wooden one?” “You don’t have mangers made of wood,” he explained patiently. “They’re illegal.” Yes, you guessed it – health and safety. But for good reason – the wood harbou

Late start this morning. Our country may be experiencing a seismic shift but a granddaughter’s school nativity play always has the priority. And as ever, it’s one surprise after another - the angel Gabriel, manger, shepherds and then out of nowhere, the three kings. Life is full of surprises. Certainly last night’s exit poll came – it would seem – as a huge surprise to nearly everyone, however they may have voted. So much so that I immediately went online to see how ac

This morning I shall be nervously standing by the phone. You may laugh, but it seems that my lifetime ambition to be the player-manager for Everton FC may still be realised. You may have read this morning that finally, after the 5-2 humiliation at the expense of our Stanley Park neighbours, manager Marco Silva has been sacked. Now we are seeking to appoint our fourth permanent manager since Roberto Martinez was sacked in May 2016. It can’t be easy being a manager of a