"Oh No!" I hear you cry.
Yes, it’s that time again! Another newsletter from the Hathaways.
I don’t know where to start I have so much to say. And all of it drivel! Actually that’s been the story of my life. When I started school I used to go to bed worrying I’d forget all the things I wanted to tell people the next morning. Anyway…
Did you have a merry Christmas? We did. And peaceful it was too. We started Christmas (this means we had crackers and a very large tin of Quality Street) on Saturday 23rd as my friends Lucy and Richard were coming to visit. What with this, Christmas parties, Carol concerts, Nativity plays (not to mention practices! I mean five practices to walk down an aisle and pick up a doll in a shawl!), etc. the girls were whacked by the time Christmas arrived! And so on Christmas Eve all three were asleep by 8 and Santa had been by 9!! We were alone for Christmas dinner but joined my sisters and brother Patrick for tea. Two girls fell asleep in the car on the way home (it’s all of two miles) and so Christmas night was another peaceful one with just one or two chocolates to keep us company!
Presents were good. Laura got a Cozy Coup¾ car (£8 from the second hand toy shop – BARGAIN!) which has just been tremendous. Carl doesn’t have much input into buying Christmas presents but asked me if I could make a list of the presents we’d bought for the girls so that he could say when they asked him at work! I ask you… He did specify this year that there were to be no more dolls, prams or anything big! Ba humbug! Santa brought a crying dolly for Charlotte, my sister-in-law bought Laura a new buggy (I can’t imagine who would’ve suggested such a thing) and we got Laura the car! The car has proved exceedingly popular and I’m already looking forward to upgrading some time in the future! Charlotte does an awful lot of driving with Laura standing on the back or lying flat on the top [she learnt that at a very early age from Sue’s lot!] This morning Charlotte drove into the kitchen asking if I could see a parking space. When I told her that the kitchen wasn’t really the place to park your car, she said O.K. but I’d have to see her out!
Mum (resisted the temptation to highlight the word ‘breast’ then as the topic word for this paragraph) is almost fully recovered. For those of you who don’t know, she had breast cancer, which was discovered from a routine visit to the Mobile Breast Screening clinic during Breast Awareness month. That is, a mobile clinic, not a mobile breast… Anyway… The cancer was discovered, removed and she had three weeks radiotherapy just to be sure.
We’re all very glad that she decided to go as she’s not automatically called any more, as she’s considered too old! Any road, apart from having trouble repetitively lifting things in and out of the loft (which, NO! She doesn’t have to do), and apart from a swollen hand and wrist which is a result of her having leant on it over Christmas to do a jigsaw (PATHETIC, isn’t it! Actually that reminds me of an incident from my childhood [here we go!] I remember proudly showing my auntie Pat the blister on my finger which I had incurred as a result of sharpening all my pencils [once an obsessive…], and instead of praising me for my dedication to pencil sharpening, she took one look, laughed, and said, "That’s pathetic Judy, isn’t it!) she’s as fit as a fiddle!
Actually, while we’re on a serious subject, and friends I feel I can confide in you, I perhaps should mention that Carl and I have been going through quite a rough patch in our marriage these last one and a half days (actually it’s not quite that long!). It all started during the week when the landing light blew and all the upstairs lights went out. My dad popped in the next day and replaced the fuse so that although we didn’t have use of the landing light, all other rooms were as normal. Now, me, being me, didn’t actually get round to phoning an electrician so yes! I suppose it IS ALL MY FAULT! But yesterday with TEN MINUTES to spare before going out, Carl decided to ‘take a look’ at the dreaded light switch and managed to blow a total of three fuses, leaving us with no light upstairs or downstairs. With a shout of ‘I hope you’re satisfied’, Carl went "out!" leaving the rest of us in virtual darkness! He did return a couple of hours later but that didn’t stop Rebecca at bedtime telling me about Claudia whose Dad doesn’t live with them, although Claudia does still see him at week-ends! This morning she asked if we were ever (it was only yesterday!) going "to get back together" and so, after Church I looked Carl in the eye and told him "I’m still cross" and he looked at me and said the same and now everything is back to normal. Apart from the fact that the electrician who came in (after Carl left) couldn’t put back Carl’s wiring and so now we’re without a hall light and door bell!
The new porch has proved useful these last few weeks and not just for the light which shines in to the hall! However what started out as a fairly spacious area in which I could park a large pram, has now been reduced to little more than a square foot, the rest of the space being filled with boots, shoes, skates, helmets, outdoor dolls prams (as opposed to indoor dolls prams/indoor dolls prams for upstairs/outdoor buggies for the back garden) etc. And the place under the stairs which formerly housed the shoes etc. has become a buggy/car park for new wheeled toys.
There’s not much to report about the girls since last time. They’re still getting on really well at school. Rebecca adores Mr. Orrock and indeed, went pink when she saw him at the beginning of this term. If she really does adore him, then this sort of quashes my theory about her being gay! Oh well, there’s always Laura, she’s fairly tough…
Laura’s just turned two and between Christmas and her birthday has had a Hotpoint washing machine (which makes water noises when it fills, washing noises, and spins! – It even has an ecowash cycle), an electrolux hoover and a cleaning trolley! It was so funny after her birthday tea seeing her cousins industriously cleaning everything, not to mention washing Pop’s handkerchief – rather them than me!! Laura’s still into everything and climbs up the drawer knobs in the kitchen to get whatever she needs from the surface. She’s using her potty now although she drinks so much ‘back’ (blackcurrant) that it has been hard keeping up with her. Mind you the back has proved an excellent bribe as has the Pingu video. When Sue was potty training Sally, both Sally and Lucy would sit on their potties in front of the television. So that when the man came to repair the T.V. Sue looked through the hatch to see both the girls sat down on their potties. I went to see Lucy & Sally in The Nutcracker this year as performed by the Infants (ha ha) at Hockley Primary!! Marvellous!
The snow was wonderful, but came on the wrong day! Honestly, we’ve waited three years (or is it more?) for some decent snow and it came on the day we were due to travel to Lincolnshire to visit Carl’s sister. We set off but accidents on the M25 and a 30mph speed limit on the M11 (I can see my friends in Indonesia smiling – not much motorway chaos there, I’ll wager!) meant that it would have been silly to have gone any further. So we came off the M11 with the intention of turning around but re-joined the motorway going in the same direction (ooops!) and had to travel another 15 miles before the next service station! Have you seen the Web Points (like cash points) at service stations where you can email or whatever? Fascinating Captain. We had a snowball fight and then got in the car and went home! Still we arrived home in one piece which is the main thing.
I hope you’ve made it to the end. I am aware that I have burbled on this time even more than usual. Red wine and garlic bread doesn’t help, although to be honest I’m not sure that these two substances are really to blame. In fact I’m pretty damned sure that garlic bread has never caused burbling in any shape or form.
And on that note, I’ll bid you Farewell and Bon Voyage.
God Bless.
Judy
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