Saturday 30 December 2017

Christmas 2016

2016 was a mixed bag for us.  Between Brexit and President elect The Donald, it has been a discombobulating year to say the least. 

Most of our highpoints were our times away from home.  In February, we travelled to Barcelona and had a fabulous time visiting the sights and sampling tapas.  The kids didn’t think much of the Picasso Museum. They felt he started off alright but later work such as his ‘Las Meninas’ were beneath contempt. 

In addition to planning a fabulous weekend in Paris kicked off with a conspicuously chic picnic on the Eurostar, Andrew pulled off a surprise getaway to Madrid for Cynthia’s 50th.  For the remainder of the year, we sponged shamelessly off our relatives with breaks at Tig and Andrew’s enchanting cottage in Lyme Regis, as well as the Colemans in Paris and Normandy.    

Workwise, Andrew changed tack and became a Latin teacher across three schools and various tutoring gigs.  He’d last taught at his old boarding school when Thatcher was PM and has had to adopt a more softly-softly approach to students who are no longer motivated by the threat of swift beatings.  You may have heard that Latin is a dead language, so no great changes in that industry since those heady days of his unbridled youth. 

Cynthia has also stepped back in time to take on insurance work.  Now that site visits are partly superceded by sitting at home downloading satellite images, risk reports can be filed from the comfort of her bunny slippers and fetching onesie or moth-eaten leisure garment.  Hypothetically speaking.  Not that she owns a onesie but you get the point.  I vow to wear normal clothes when the children have friends around next year.  That said, such fun to slip into my trusty Madonna holdovers from the “Desperately Seeking Susan” era when they are all out of the house. 

With Alex now 12 and in Year 8, we have a form of live-in aftercare for Emily.  He usually remembers to pick up his sister who is 11 and in Year 6 at a school across the road.  Alex has stunned us with a fantastic report card given that much of the time he opts not to review for exams stating that he “can’t be bothered” and that “life is too short”.   I will be adopting his laissez faire bonhomie as the first of my New Year’s resolutions and will retort similarly when Alex is next hoping to locate rugby socks or a fresh school shirt. 

Drumming continues to grip Alex’ interest as does table tennis.  You’d think hanging around parks in various European capitals waiting by a ping pong table for someone (anyone) to turn up appears a little suspect but not in his world where language and lack of social intercourse of any kind is no barrier to picking up a game with random passers by.    I am greatly comforted that he keeps words to a minimum and grunts at perfect strangers so it isn’t behaviour reserved for home life!

Emily is perfecting cartwheels, backflips, walkovers and various other bendy moves learned in her Saturday gym sessions.  This follows an extensive campaign when she insisted she wanted to take classes despite our unwillingness to indulge her in this pursuit.  We had our reasons, namely that when an 11 year old spontaneously wants to pursue this dream, the entire West London gymnastics community snorts derisively that to attend this or that class, you’d have to have signed your daughter up at conception.   Andrew and I stood shoulder to shoulder, united in parental we-know-bestnest while she slowly eroded our will to live and applied stealth like tactics to make us doubt every decision we ever made on her behalf.  In a final offensive, Emily wore nothing but a spangly leotard she’d purchased, from the back of a sales rack in an industrial estate in Normandy for 9 euros, day and in day out for a solid week and we finally caved.   So she attends a weekly dance, tumbling, gymnastics, cheerleading hybrid class that keeps her off our backs.

Emily is busy preparing her 11+ exams and it won’t be long before she’ll know where she is going for Year 7.  Following loads of visits to schools rated by her on the basis of uniform style, cafeteria smells and presence or absence of boys, she has created a shortlist.  I’m not going to name names but some of the schools we visited were scary places full of very precocious girls in smart uniforms—at least from the waist up.  From what we could see some skirts weren’t strictly speaking of approved lengths.  Nor where they even, technically speaking, skirts at all.  Call me old-fashioned but a nice ankle-length tweed wouldn’t go amiss.

Upon reflection, we had much to be thankful for this year although I was unable to channel that sentiment into a reasonable looking pumpkin pie.  Being half American, it is my job to muster up treats at Thanksgiving and July 4th – the latter being great fun when you live in England and are married to a Brit.  Nothing like painting one’s nails red, white and blue and waving a cheery “Happy Fourth” to every passerbye on the Chiswick High Road. 

But back to Thanksgiving, I resorted to remaining unflappable and to act like the recipe came out exactly as a distant ancestor or the inhabitants of some remote location intend.  I have yet to be questioned and suggest you try this for yourselves.   Soggy base on that pecan pie you say? Not a bit of it.  It’s a traditional family recipe from Mooseprout where my Great Aunt Vonga ran the women’s local "Stitch and Bitch" sessions.  She was known across county borders for her reinterpretations of Amish quilts integrating family jockstraps and tea towels (Beautiful work from a woman with hands the size of meat cleavers).  She used to chew tobacco and whistle motown tunes to stay alert blah blah blah…by the time you are part way through this insane family recollection, they’ve lost the will to live and the pecan pie has been eaten/discarded.  
Voila!

We hope Christmas finds you with loved ones and that 2017 will kick off full of great plans.  Do drop us a line if with your news and come visit!



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