I know that the Christmas season is well and truly underway when I start my Christmas present wrapping sessions at the Millgate Shopping Centre in Bury. This is the fourth year that the Bury Society for Blind and Partially Sighted People have run their luxury wrapping service. The idea is that shoppers bring their presents to a stall manned by volunteers who wrap their presents in return for a donation to the Charity’s funds. The suggested donation is £1.00 per present but many people give more and no-one minds if it is less for a small present say from a child or pensioner.
Well today I did the first of my scheduled nine sessions and all went well I soon got back into the swing of it. The target this year is a very ambitious £4,000 which is an awful lot of presents to wrap!
Yesterday, after a day full of planning meetings and dealing with my numerous e-mails Sue and I and an evening off and attended a performance of The Hound of the Baskervilles which is on all this week at Bolton Little Theatre. It was extremely enjoyable and entertaining with skilful acting and superb effects.
The big political event of the day has been the Government’s pre-budget report. A relatively new idea which seems to be more about Government spin than budget planning. Rather than the traditional one budget a year we now seem to be having two. Unfortunately for the labour Government the state of the nation’s finances are so dire that the budget contained nothing but bad news for hardworking families in Bury. National Insurance Contributions which are simply income tax by another name are to rise yet again and so many people will see their take home pay reduced.
David Nuttall 