Christmas Letter 2008

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Ecstasy in the snow at Corin Forest

This is a story about Fiona's visit in the school holidays in July.

Having been traumatised at Ikea in May, organising the delivery of a large order for us, she swore she'd never go there again. She had to manage four trolleys on her own. When she finally got through the checkout and approached the delivery desk, they sent her back through the checkout again to buy a bag to put the little stuff in. The process took hours, was extremely strenuous, and made her late to pick the children up from school.

But she did go back, kind as she is, to get us some more Bennos (CD shelves), which she brought down in July on her roofrack, through rain and wind and having to stop every five minutes to tighten the ropes.

During this visit, as always, Fiona took Amy and Daniel everywhere, to everything, but this time they were both quite grumpy. The place where their grumpiness was most marked was Corin Forest, where about a thousand other people were beside themselves with joy because of the snow. A & D were cross because we'd mentioned the slide, which turned out to be closed - buried under all the snow. Wah!

I was pleased to hear from Fiona recently that A & D have ended up with happy memories of the day. Some people nearby started building a fire, and the children helped them find wood. Then it became apparent that the fire was for roasting marshmallows. Unfortunately the people (of whom there were lots) only had a vestige of a bag of marshmallows. I was afraid more wahing would ensue, but the people were very kind and made sure the children got one each.

I was ecstatic in the snow but I was glad I had my sister with me, because she knows about snow and she stopped me falling over.

There are pictures of the Billies (bookshelves) and Bennos that Fiona bought, and Dac and Mique built, on my Flickr pages (among the cat pix).

July was also when we lost our dear old Puzzle puss - fond memories (with a new bit by Dac, for those who read about the cats last year).

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Page created 20 December 2008; last updated 22 December 2008