Christmas concerts and twinkling trains

I'VE always been a bit fearful about partaking of one of those DNA tracing sites.

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You know, the ones that tell you were Atilla the Hun’s second brother's, mother’s, uncle’s daughter and that the other 40% of you were penniless vagabonds who roamed the Danakil Depression in Ethiopia.

Actually, finding old Atilla in my bloodline wouldn't overly concern me. No, the one I'd hate to come across is the Grinch and over the past few years I’ve had a sneaking suspicion he’s in there somewhere.

But that was knocked out the ballpark last weekend when I completely immersed myself in festivities.

On Friday night, my choir, The Big Noise Chorus, excelled themselves at our Christmas concert at Sidwell Street Methodist Church in Exeter.

We were joined by the Newtown Roots Band for an evening of seasonal songs and pop classics, which included A Fairytale of New York.

Now, the last time we sang that at Exeter Cathedral we had to obscure the original words with a duck call for fear of thunderbolts. This time we went for it... and I’m still here.