We have been to most of the village pantos over the past 40 years and it's rumbunctious fun.
The years just drift away as I remember taking our own sons when they were young and now we take our grandchildren.
Many many years ago when I lived in Suffolk, we went to the Loddon panto which was the best one around, but even that doesn't compare with the Hethersett production although I do miss the pantomime horse or cow which used to be a feature at Loddon.
Our village hall was packed as usual for the panto which continues all the way through this week.
A few musings about nuts.
Love em all. The long and the short and the tall. Sorry got carried away there. Back to nuts.
What's your favourite nut I hear you say? That really is what I call a Howard and Hilda moment. If you don't know what I'm talking about you will never have seen Ever Decreasing Circles on television. This was a brilliant comedy series that included a married couple named Howard and Hilda. They wore matching jumpers with the letter H on them and discussed interesting topics like their favourite flavour of Jam. Another wonderful programme I remember fondly is A Most Peculiar Practice which was at times very surreal. Check those out if you've never seen them and you will understand my sense of humour more.
But back to nuts - no tittering please. Who remembers sitting with a pair of nutcrackers at Christmas time decimating a Walnut or a Brazil nut? Walnuts always made the most mess but Brazil nuts were the toughest to crack with those hard almost triangular shells. For a long time I thought the term Brazil Nut referred to the Ipswich footballer Alan Brazil who now appears with monotonous regularity on sports talk shows thus proving that Ipswich Town players do have one brain cell (well some of them anyway).
I loved the fact that Tchaikovsky wrote a ballet about this. Nowadays of course you get nuts without their shells in a packet.
Pistachio nuts were always dangerous. You could do considerable amounts of damage to the tips of your fingers trying to open them. Peanuts in their shells could be problematic as well.
But when it comes to nuts I'm very old school and classic cashews are still my favourites although almonds are nice as well, particularly if they are sugar coated. Nuts are wonderful and release energy but I feel so sorry for the thousands who have nut allergies and cannot enjoy them. And why do cashew nuts not sometimes come with their shells? Do cashew nuts actually have shells? I will leave you with that thought.