Barney seen in Tonbridge High Street....

I took the kids down to see the Christmas lights being switched on yesterday and was actually pleasantly surprised at the event. Despite, lets just say, bleedin' awful weather there must have been several thousand townsfolk out to see Barney (apparently a famous children's TV presenter) The local press snappers were there to see the event which included Barney introducing the main characters in the Christmas Panto, Cinderella (which is being shown not in Tonbridge, but in the upstart daughter town down the road! couldn't Tonbridge get its own star?!) Barney then showed tremendous improvisation skills by getting the crowd to "clap on" the lights, since nobody had given him a switch to at least pretend to be turning them on. Then we saw the carnival, which included the Boys Brigade band, the impressive joint Tonbridge Churches Narnia float and, of course, some extremely cold and tired looking twirler groups (but thank goodness they were allowed to wear tracksuits to save us all from the sight of those cold red thighs.) Then we were treated to a really good free fireworks display, which lit up the night sky and the Castle and did the town proud. If only the same effort had been put into the excuse of a Christmas market the day before....