Brilliant Christmas carols and concerts in Littlehampton

I started my week on a cold Wednesday morning to commemorate the handover of new allotments at the Kingley Gate development from developer Barratt Homes to Littlehampton Town Council. Following a ribbon cutting, representatives from Barratt Homes, new allotment holders and members of the town council were invited to share in a hot chocolate and mince pie.

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This is the first site in Littlehampton to have provided accessible plots, something I am extremely passionate about, so was very proud that, through working with Barratt Homes and a grant for accessible picnic tables and potting table from Tesco Bags of Help, we have been able to deliver this.

The next evening I was at St Mary’s Church for the Rotary club’s carol service. I was greeted by the sound of Littlehampton Concert Band, one of my favourite bands, so knew it was going to be an enjoyable evening. The evening started with a welcome from Rotary president Bruce Green and then it was time for us all to be joining in with traditional Christmas carols.

Dispersed between the carols were performances by children from Lyminster, St Catherine’s Catholic and White Meadows primary schools, and readings of the Christmas story by Rotarians. There was also a delightful solo performance of O’ Holy Night by Emily Williams whose amazingly beautiful and spiritual voice filled the church to the rafters.

Come Friday evening I was at St James Church for the Winter Wonderland concert on a glitz and glamour theme so lots of the audience arrived dressed to impress! With lots of well known Christmas songs to get everyone in the spirit it was a wonderful show, the choir also managed to squeeze in a few less familiar numbers including Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas, and The Wonderful Christmas Pig.

Having attended a number of the choir’s concerts it was a delight to be asked to take part by reading the poem A Visit From St Nicholas which is actually one of my favourites. The night concluded with Feliz Navidad but not before everyone had to perform the 12 Days of Christmas, or should that be the 12 Days of Glitzmas?

It has become one of the choir’s traditions to rewrite the song and hand out song sheets to everyone, each with only two or three of the lines of the song so everyone joins in by standing and singing a section, and the church was filled with laughter.

On Saturday evening I was due to join the Arun Yacht Club fo