The reason we were going is right there in the photo to your left, Cbeebies presenters Cerrie Burnell and Alex Winters were reading stories for the children.
When Elizabeth was in hospital Cbeebies was the only channel she was able to watch on her TV and having those familiar faces there smiling and happy ever day made Elizabeth happy (even if it did make me slightly homicidal).
We had met Alex quite a few times during the summer and we even saw him the week before we realised Elizabeth was ill. Seeing Alex on Cbeebies was a brilliant boost for her and she enjoyed telling all the other sick children that it was Her Alex on the TV.
The highlight of the day for me was watching Alex try not to laugh at Cerrie’s attempts to ignore the children who were not doing as they were supposed to be doing. As she read her story they slowly creeped onto the stairs or tried to climb onto the stage.
As you can see from this photo he was really trying but it wasn’t working and it really was quite funny to watch.
Parents, in future control your children and Cerrie, no-one will be annoyed if you tell the little angels (not my first choice of word) to sit on the floor like all the other children. Although your beautiful daughter is obviously the exception, she is just gorgeous and it was great to see her again at the Cbeebies Panto (but that is a different blog post altogether).
There was lots of other things going on at the Manchester Literacy Festival including authors, crafts and a little market but Alex and Cerrie were definitely our highlight.