Once upon a time I was responsible for organising a church Christmas fete. It was a nightmare; for four weeks I felt as though I was in the middle of some living hell, which is strange considering who the boss was!

People, who had been running stalls for years, wouldn't change anything from the way it had always been done. New stall holders fell out with old ones, the vicar was on my back every five minutes, his wife got stroppy, the Church Warden threatened to resign if the church toilets were used,  and the PCC declared war on the idea of introducing children’s activities.  On and on it went.
I was a shade of my former (company MD  adviser to the Shadow Chancellor) self  by nine lessons and carols, and was considering an attempted overdose of home-made jam.

On Sunday, I went to St Andrew’s Church in Ampthill for a tree festival. Such calm, what ease - a church full of decorated Christmas trees from just about every community organisation in Ampthill. Carol Gibson and I strolled around, voted for the one we thought was the best, and then sat and ate mince pies, drank delicious mulled wine, and chatted about anything and everything, to everyone else who was there.
Judy and Paul, fantastic job, absolutely brilliant, well done; long may Ampthill tree festival live on. You probably made as much money, if not more, than you would have done from the usual fete, with much less hassle.
P.s. my vote was for the town band’s tree, it was so pretty!