Father Christmas In The Rain

"Bah, humbug!" I hear you cry. If my dear sainted mother could have seen me in a furry red suit, Johnson's baby powder hairsprayed into place through my beard and merrily "ho ho ho-ing" around Millbrook last night, she'd have laughed her socks off.

Behind me in the photo is Tony Mann who is responsible for getting me into this in the first place. He's making an effort to fix the dripping wet speaker system so we could blast Millbrook with Christmas tunes.

I was towed around West St, around Hounster, down St Andrew's St and then around Mill View and Molesworth in a converted trailer whilst a team of very damp elves knocked on doors and collected lots of cash for the Lions' charity pot.

Quite a few small children were brought out to have a word with Father Christmas and I tried to make it as convincing as I could; I asked their names, checked that they'd been good all year, asked what they wanted for Christmas and gave a non-committal "we'll see what we can do" whatever the response. I haven't had so much fun since Gawd-knows when. Some of them were practically wetting themselves with excitement, dancing about from one leg to the other.

The weather was truly appalling, the rain didn't let up for a minute, and the team got many sympathetic comments from people on the route. Mrs Christmas was prevailed upon to join the elves and got a soaking, whilst I sat under at least a semblance of shelter. We did lots of waving to each other. Auntie Sharon ("Lush Lewis", another new name) elfed about as well, alongside a great team of Lions. Afterwards we were all invited back to Mike Collins' place for homemade sausage rolls and mulled wine. Nicky Christmas, Shazeroonypoos and I then repaired to the Mark of Friendship where Don joined us and we enjoyed an ale or two before calling it a night.

Merry Christmas!!!

Ho ho ho.