A family day out at the Christmas market in Winchester

All the family in Winchester , originally uploaded by Racmol.

We've just spent a lovely relaxed Friday at the Christmas market surrounding Winchester Cathedral with our friends Adam, Angeline and Millie.

We took the train from Waterloo on a groupsave 4 ticket, which took about an hour. It was a bitterly cold day but the market was lovely - with more than enough mulled wine, hot chocolate, fruit mince pies and Belgian waffles to keep everyone happy!

We bought a few small presents and three Christmas decorations for our Christmas tree. We're hoping to pick up a tree tomorrow at the farmers' market as advent starts on Monday.

Sofia and Millie had a lovely time running about at the market and as it was in a big enclosed courtyard with no cars, they couldn't come to too much harm. Sofia is tall enough now to help herself to the free samples of cheese, jams and so on - but she still ate a big lunch when we finally found somewhere to eat.

There are lots of big dogs in Winchester - Old English sheepdogs and big shaggy black ones, for example.

Only one complaint - the cathedral toilets didn't have a nappy change table, which seemed like a massive oversight when you consider how many pushchairs there were at the market. At only 5 degrees celsius, Friday was not a good day for changing nappies on the concrete floor!

I fell asleep on the train on the way back. Sofia sat on Adam and lifted up his jersey saying 'baby' and 'tummy' - I think he was a bit offended!

Today Jules went to the rugby at Twickenham and Sofia and I went to the post depot to pick up a parcel - containing one very beautiful Christmas stocking from the Nanny. Jules said: 'I guess we're responsible for filling that for the next 20 or 50 years'...so I suppose we'd better buy some more items than just the Upsy Daisy socks that are hiding in my wardrobe.