Doom and Gloom!

This time of year, when all the excitement of Christmas is over and done, (doesn't it seem like months ago now?) and the weather hasn't really improved much, and there is darkness in a morning when you get up, and it's dark when you come home from work, it doesn't really put you in a "get up and go" type of mood does it? In fact it really seems to me that the wild animals have more sense than we have. At least some of them avoid this by hibernating!

This time of year, there always seems to be lots of doom and gloom stories in the papers. Policeman killed on his way to a road traffic accident (on the same road we travel when we visited Masham, riots in Belfast, an organist murdered on his way to play a midnight service [I'm seriously thinking of demanding danger money!]

At least there was one spot of enlightenment from the doom and gloom. We paid our annual visit to Harrogate Theatre to see the pantomime. This year it was Jack and the Beanstalk, with Tim Stedman in his usual role - this time that of Simple Simon. His opening entrance saw him dressed as a bullfighter, but having a docile cow called Buttercup did little to persuade the audience that he was up to the job!

Polly Lister, who played the Good Fairy and Morag, the Giant's housekeeper did sterling work. As a slightly upper crust Good Fairy she raised some titters from the audience, and as Morag she kept up an absolutely convincing thick Glaswegian accent, which not only baffled the rest of the cast, but had the audience straining to understand what she was saying. She was a sort of female Billy Connolly.

The Baddie, Fleshcreep, initially seemed to be playing the role in an understated manner, but he had a way of telling the audience "this is the clever bit" every time he plotted some evil deed.

As I came away from the pantomime I wondered how I would explain what a pantomime is to someone who has never seen one before.........

How can you get away with...the leading boy is a girl dressed up as a boy, the dame is always a man, dressed up as a lady, with a wig, bright red lipstick and outrageous clothes. It begins to sound a bit like a show for transvestites!

None the less it was as enjoyable and entertaining as ever.

But back to the doom and gloom. It always seems that just after Christmas there is a glut of people dying, and it's not just because the crematorium has closed over the Christmas period! In the next fourteen days I will have five funerals to play for.

So I will close with my best wishes for you all to have A Happy New Year!