X FACTOR

My Christmas present from our daughter was a pair of X Factor tickets so last night we went along to the Liverpool Echo Arena next to the Albert Dock. This was the first time I'd been in it - the location is spectacular and I made a mental note to visit the Pizza Express place next to it - with a window seat you'd be looking across the Mersey to one side and over to the beautiful new buildings at Liverpool One on the other.

The show was great fun, we had front row seats and we enjoyed every minute. The atmosphere and the acoustics weren't quite up to the standard set by the MEN and the person in charge of props seemed to favour swinging the acts over our heads as though they were Peter Pan. But that aside, everyone on stage was brilliant - belting out all the songs that had helped them through the X Factor rounds.

Lloyd had grown up and improved, Olly should have won and Jamie's rendition of Sex on Fire reminded me of why I thought he would win way back at the audition stage.

 

And I can't believe that I queued for ten minutes to buy a signed picture of Stacey for a friend. It was an occasion when I wished I was sporting a burka.

Meanwhile Oscar has again mislaid his blanket and we've all been trailing the streets  and car parks of Southport in an effort to find it. But this time it is well and truly lost. He now has blanket number two, which I hurriedly knitted last time number one temporarily went missing. It's no real substitute but it's the best we can do and needless to say I'm now working on blanket number three!

He's  been trying on his half-term swimming gear