Saturday, 25 November 2006

Unwinding

In the morning, we collected our grand-daughter Bethany (age 2) and drove her mother Rhiannon to work. Back at home we took delivery of a new sofa and chair, and then took the old furniture (well past any hope of recycling) to the local dump.

Beth is at the delightful age where she talks almost constantly but has difficulty making herself understood. She displayed considerable patience repeating herself over and over until her dull grand-parents finally grasp what she means. At one point, a violent thunderstorm passed nearby and she was unreasonably scared by the thunder.

At lunchtime, we took Beth to visit my parents in Letchworth and spent the afternoon there. Beth enjoyed sitting up at the table for a proper family meal. Also present was Lynn, my eldest brother Bill’s girlfriend for twenty years until 2005. She bought down boxes of Christmas presents all wrapped up. Christmas-wise, Jackie and I are a bit off the pace.

After restoring Beth to her mother, we spent the evening with our neighbours Linda and Allan. Somehow during the day’s activities, Jackie had managed to prepare a wonderful meal with dishes from China, Thailand, India and Greece. We had “the full works” (aperitifs, red wine, dessert wine, and port) and rounded off the evening with a hand of cards while sitting on our new furniture.