Weak Ending

I've been feeling increasingly tired as the week has gone on. There have been lots of things to do. Friday was interesting- in the morning it was the school play. The children were brilliant - funny, tuneful, bright, entertaining...mostly planned. Two unexpected humorous moments. Firstly,when Robin Hood's band and the Sheriff's men were fighting.

They had a carefully staged sword fight- but the swords, although brandished with enthusiasm, never actually clashed. Halfway through, Robin's hat fell off. His opponent stopped fighting and picked it up, then tried politely to replace it on Robin's head. Once done, they returned to battle. The second moment was towards the end of the play, when the herald announced "The Old Beggar From Worksop" but mispronounced one word. I don't know if he realised quite why the audience was so amused.
In the afternoon I went off to a different school, to have a craft table at their Christmas Fayre. I'd seen an appeal for "different stalls" on a local social media page, and rang the organiser to ask if she was interested in "personalised gifts" She said they'd never had that before and it sounded good.

So I loaded the car with bibs and facecloths and my embroidery machine. I got off to a bad start- I was half an hour early, and even then couldn't get a parking spot anywhere nearby. Then I found I'd been put in a classroom with four tombola stalls [two bottle stalls, one sweet jar stall and one soft toy stall]. All of these appeared to work on the same principle- buy a ticket and you have a 50% chance of winning something. Almost all the prizes had been won within 45 minutes. What surprised me was the fact that the two bottle stalls were soft drinks [50p ticket] and alcoholic drinks [£1 ticket]- and there was no age restriction. Small children were happily coming in and wandering away with bottles of booze in their hands [is that legal?] I watched the comings and goings, but my bibs and facecloths were no match for the gin and cuddly penguins. I had just three customers. Once I'd subtracted my £10 table fee, and costs, I'd made a grand profit of £1. Bob applied the Micawber Principle and said £1 profit was better than £1 loss. It won't go far towards paying for my recent car repair though...
There were some really good moments in the day however
In the morning, as they were getting into costume, a pupil came up to tell me it was her Gran who had commented on the blog last week. When I went out into the entrance, to wait for Bob, her Gran came and introduced herself- Lesley, it was lovely to meet you. Thank you for coming up and introducing yourself. You must be very proud of your granddaughter's performance !
In the afternoon at the Fayre, I saw half a dozen friends, parents and pupils from the school. It was good to hear of the safe arrival of a new baby [I sent Dad & big brother home with a bib for the little one] and to catch up with other news.

I was saddened by the incident on London Bridge - my thoughts and prayers are with those affected. And I'm so grateful to Liz for sending a message saying they were all OK. She's very thoughtful about such things. 
This afternoon will be busy with the town Christmas Light Switch on. So the boxes of play costumes will have to remain unsorted until next week. I am learning to recognise when I need to take a rest!