Morning all. Having a nice laze in bed with a cuppa after a hectic few days at work. The Late Late Toy Show kicked off the Christmas season last night. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the Late Late Show is a live chat show (a bit like the Graham Norton show except with less glitzy celebrities and a higher concentration of Irish celebrities). It's been running since the 60s. Once a year (around the end of November or early December) they have a show especially for children. They have children giving demonstrations of different toys interspersed with children or teenagers giving musical or dance performances. It's really magical and the fact that children are allowed stay up late to watch it (it starts at 9.30 p.m.) adds to the excitement. Of course, the smaller ones are usually asleep after about half an hour 
. The presenter gives out lots of generous prizes to the audience e.g. free toys and very generous gift cards for different shops, so there's huge demand for audience tickets. Last night one of the prizes (for each member of the audience) was a free holiday at a new Center Parcs that's due to open in Ireland! They usually have a slot where one of the children is rendered speechless when their musical or sporting hero walks onto the set. Happier I don't know if you watched it the whole way through so I won't spoil it for you if you didn't see this bit. The Toy Show is a bit of an institution in Ireland so all the kids would be talking about it at school and to actually get picked to demonstrate toys or perform on the Toy Show is A Very Big Deal. Some people put up their Christmas tree and decorations the day of the Toy Show.
Anyway, I gave out the Advent calendars to DH (Lego Star Wars) and DD (Cadburys). They were very bold and opened the first window after midnight.
It should be a frugal weekend because I'm not going anywhere or doing anything much. I want to give the house a good clean and catch up on laundry and wrap some of my presents.
Meadow I'm sorry to hear that everyone is so sick, especially DD. Hope you all feel better soon. It's very stressful and I'm not surprised your anxiety has rocketed 
. I hope your little excursion to the fayre helped - good to get away from it all even for a little while.
Seacow hope the Santa train is good and not too overwhelming for DS. Very annoying about the bank account 
. Sounds like your oven wasn't too impressed with the vigorous cleaning and is now staging a protest.
Happier glad the instapot arrived - hope all goes well for your party. Is if family or friends or a mix of both?
Sneaky don't like the sound of your creepy neighbour 
Lonely what a rotten thing to happen at work. And I think you said that jobs like that are very scarce where you live, so it's not like you can flounce off and find another job where they'll treat you better. But don't believe their put-downs. At the risk of repeating myself, you are crafty and talented and all around fab and I am proud to call you my imaginary friend. I also predict that the other person will make a mess of the work and then they'll look to you to pick up the pieces.
Get well soon Girlie and Girlie Jr.
Autumn seems like your music has given you a new lease of life. You sound very chirpy these days.
Wolf annoying about the late payment from DH. Hopefully it's the bank's fault and not DH playing mind games.
Cag I was thinking of you during the week. They're opening a Hotel Chocolat in Dublin. They've a shop on Henry Street. They were fitting it out when I passed it - I'm not sure if it's actually opened yet.