Having received an invitation from our partner Inholborn (www.inholborn.org) to attend their Christmas gathering at the Red Lion Park in Holborn, and being tempted by the promise of a free drink and a mince pie, I popped along to see what was happening.

It is worth noting at this point that Meercat's have just procured a couple of new cameras, so being a prime opportunity to test one out I arrived just after 1pm with camera in hand.

It was a cold afternoon in Holborn, but the hot coffee I was handed as I joined the inholborn team soon beat of the winter weather. A crowd was already forming as I looked around the park noting the Christmas trees decorated in orange lights (the company colours for inholborn) and entertainment in the form of carol singers provided by the children's charity ‘Coram' (www.coram.org.uk) were lining themselves up and about to start.

With so many opportunities I must have looked like a tourist, camera in hand and snapping away at everything that stood still for longer than a hundredth of a second.

From the start the crowd got into the festive spirit singing along to carols, with even a few members of the crowd getting brave and venturing over to join the team from Coram. Obviously I would have been in there with them showing off my vocal skills, but someone had to capture the event and I hardly knew how to use the camera, let alone explain it's working to someone else.

Inholborn runs informative lunch time walks around Holborn and on this day the park was going to be the end location for today's walk, so at about 1:45pm the existing crowd grew dramatically in size, all was peaceful though, as there were plenty of mince pies, coffee, tea and even wine to go around.

So with treats in hand the crowd listened, sang along or chatted away in the park. A good community activity in the heart of London that got everyone in the mood for Christmas.

It's cold! You should be wearing two coats