I’ve just had my first round robin. They mainly now come by email, every bit as grim as the posted hand-carved kind. It is part of the deal that ‘all the news’ is sent by those who have none at all. Whilst I have every confidence that JaneLaverick.com readers, especially you, have full and happy lives, I thought, just in case, that you might like a cut, paste and send robin of your own to save the effort. After all you may need the day spent pencil chewing for something more productive, like watching TV. It is at this time of year that my other half, traditionally, stops watching ‘Reach for the sky’ on far flung channels and starts watching ‘It’s a wonderful life’ instead. Christmas customs, you just can’t beat them.
Start cutting and pasting now.
Dear Friend,
In another packed year I have been breathing both in and out and my blood has circulated through every last little vein all the time, even when I was asleep! My hair has grown a lot and I have had as many as twenty haircuts, somewhat of a personal best!!! during the year.
I began the year as I meant to go on by emptying and cleaning the entire fridge. I got right to the corners, (with rubber gloves) (I’m not that brave!!!!!!!) and then put all the food back. The following day I had a lie in and was fine by August.
The neighbours have been next door all year apart from the one on the other side who I do not speak about. He went off in August, goodness knows where, without cancelling the milk. As usual muggins had to clear up the awful mess and in the end I was obliged to drink all fifteen pints in order not to alert burglars to the empty house situation, this almost certainly presaging a spate of burglaries. When he returned, was he grateful for my on-my-feet-thinking? No he was not! He refused to pay for the milk saying instead that I should have rung the milkman and stopped the milk. How on earth am I supposed to know who his milkman is????????? This is typical of his thoughtlessness. Then he said I owed him for the milk, so I said he would be hearing from my legal team (I don’t have a legal team but he was not to know that) after which things escalated inexplicably and I ended up tearing my best tee shirt leaning over the hedge (which he has still not cut) to shout at him. What a difficult man. Anyway I went to the doctor and got some pills which I took religiously until I got a rash. So I went back to the doc, worried the tranqs were too strong, only to find out he had prescribed vitamin pills. He said there was nothing wrong with me at all, which I refute, but the number I swallowed, thinking they were calming me, when they were doing no such thing, may account for the length of my hair.
Momentous news! My nephew and his wife have had twins again. I will put a picture at the bottom if I can work out how to get the picture they sent from my inbox on to the bottom of this. If not, they look remarkably similar to the last two and, at a hundred and sixty three miles away are far too far by far (is that far too many fars? I have changed this so often I can’t tell now, it’s just as well I started writing this three months ago) to be baby sat by yours truly, thank goodness. Danielle and Daniel are cutting teeth and they have rehomed another abandoned cat. That makes five cats and five children now. Apparently Dora feeds them all before she goes to school (I think that means the cats, Desdemona didn’t say, she doesn’t bother with a proper Christmas letter, she just scrawls stuff on the bottom of cards by hand. I like to begin my round robin not later than the third week in September when the schools go back and the children stop noisily playing outside, so I can think.) (It is a far, far better thing I do, than other people do ha ha!!!!! No I’ll stop now with the fars.) (This seemed funny in October.) Back to all the news…………….
I painted the downstairs toilet unaided, in June. It’s white again but it looks very fresh and clean. Also, it’s no problem to get toilet paper to match, so I feel, an all round pragmatic and aesthetically acceptable solution to a tricky problem.
I was going to join the local Theatre group in May and again in October and may yet do so if the secretary gets round to returning my calls or filling in the ‘behaviour of members which I find unacceptable’ form that I sent to her.
The grass on the back lawn has grown a lot throughout the summer months. At one point I thought I might be forced to buy a new lawn mower but it stopped making the funny noise towards the end of August (August again! Everything happens in August, it always turns out to be absolutely hectic!) so I have left it. I am dreading turning it on again in the spring! Let’s hope for late frosts!
Winter, as so often, is cold. I bravely went up into the loft to give the pipe lagging its annual once over. All is well, I was able to confirm visually, with massive relief.
And so to Christmas. I can hardly believe where the year goes, it just flies by full of incident. This year I had a filling in a big back tooth and recuperated well. The dentist was pleased with my progress and said he doesn’t want to see me for another six months. I felt fully justified in celebrating with two chocolate biscuits on the trot.
I have bought four pairs of quite thick socks, one in a cheerful seasonal red, the others in my usual blue but in a heavier weight yarn. It was more expensive but I think it will be worth it. No chilly toes for me!
Let it snow! Let it snow! (For those of us with the foresight to buy thick socks.) Happy Christmas to you and here’s looking forward to another action packed year next year!
Very best wishes
Yours truly
(sign your own name here)
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JaneLaverick.com – seasonal.