December
Jay had
her mock GCSEs: some good results, and
one or two reminders that there’s more work to be done before next summer. She was allowed to come home when there was
no exam, so more time for riding on the new pony.
The pony is going well, and, of course, provides a good excuse for all
kinds of personalised care, such as the preposterous reindeer hat
Christmas
preparations were otherwise mainly in the hands of Teresa who scoured the
Cotswolds, but mainly by Internet, for suitable presents and festive fare. I have to say everyone did very well out of
it. And the Christmas tree finally
sported new lights after 28 years’ faithful service from the last set – is this
a record? The old ones had been, in
their day, expensive, tasteful and understated.
The new ones, like most things nowadays, were cheap, brash and extremely
numerous, the only saving grace being that, as they flash, only some of them
are on at any one time:
Helen
came home on Christmas Eve, and we spent a family Christmas mostly around the
dining table, imbibing, yes, but also in innocent family games such as
Rapidough – the hit this year.
Roger
kept half an ear cocked for problems with the boiler: though a plumber tracked down the source of
our damp patch – faulty tiling in Jay’s shower – this meant it was not
connected with the continual loss of pressure in the central heating boiler,
which we were assured was just a leaky radiator valve. But it wasn’t and it remains worryingly
unexplained.