There very nearly wasn’t a letter this year. She said last year’s effort was a fiasco as it seemed only two people on the mailing list had ever heard of Bridget Jones. The rest probably thought She had finally lost all her marbles. She said George and I might as well do it. I sit on Her lap when She’s typing so I know how to make the boxes produce words on paper. George prefers to play with the mouses he finds in the garden.
Christmas is pretty good as we are allowed in the white room and can sleep in front of the fire. But They get up later and we have to wait for our breakfast. But we get turkey to eat. Sometimes lots of people arrive and we stay out of the way as there is so much noise and too many feet. Also, there can be a lot of red liquid flying about.
The Boy disappeared shortly after Christmas. We saw him go with a holdall with a squash racket sticking out of it, and carrying a bonsai tree in a carrier bag. His hair was still very short. Then He disappeared every week, as usual, although this time it was to Germany, where they don’t have Danish pastries. So we were left with Her and The Girl. More room on the bed for us, though.
In February She booked us into the luxury cat hotel we like so much, but it was only for a long weekend. He and She and The Girl flew up to Edinburgh for the 18th/21st birthday weekend. We heard they took The Girl to the pub legally, and The Boy and some of his girlfriends to a Japanese restaurant. They thought they had planned for all possible contingencies, but They had not thought about the Brother-in-Law lopping the top off his finger and being unable to drive them around. So much for forward planning!
While He is away, She has taken up tai chi and strikes strange postures in the kitchen, while The Girl has taken up clubbing and staying out late. We hope she does not tread on our tails with those horrendous heels.
After a while, The Boy came back for a short time. It’s good to see him again as there is another lap to sit on, but how is He so thin when he eats so much? Then the Boy went to Brussels for a weekend to see his friend who is on a placement there, bought his mum Leonidas chocolates (what a star!) but left them in Robert’s fridge! The Girl went up to Edinburgh to stay with Samantha at the same time. It was very quiet without either of them, but hardly anyone left to feed us.
The Girl looked after us when They went to the wedding of a long lost cousin in Hampshire. He said She had only come up with one living relation in 25 years, and now there was a whole tribe of them to catch up with. (Nearly as many as his.)
Because The Girl looks after us so well, They seem to take every opportunity to go away. They went to Paris for a few days with Her art class, and found a great Japanese restaurant, and returned with a suitcase full of duty free Baileys.
In May She went to Stuttgart, where He works, for few days. It seems They drove down to Lermoos in Austria and revelled in the mountains. On the way back into Stuttgart they were surprised to see a naturist camp so very close to the motorway!
The Girl went up to London two days running to something called a Backstreet Boys concert, and now the posters in her room have changed. Goodbye to some of those poncy footballers in red shirts. And her room got springcleaned. We haven’t had so much carpet to lie on for years.
Suddenly it all got very busy. The Girl qualified as a nursery nurse. The Boy came home again. We were whisked off to the cat hotel while they pushed off to Florida. The Girl had said she could not remember it very well as it was nine years since she had been there – half a lifetime away. There were cries of “doting dad/little finger/twist”, but they went just the same! They stayed in a couple of top hotels, did lots of their favourite rides again, and then lazed about on the Gulf Coast.
When She’s not out clubbing with her friends, The Girl does a lot of baby-sitting, and is trying very hard to pass her driving test. The Boy has now got hooked into tai chi as well, and the Oldies go to a lot of parties. They went to Copenhagen for an end of project party and managed to fit in a morning’s shopping in Strøget as well. When most people were on holiday, He took an executive decision to get some work for IBM in Saudi Arabia, and has since spent several “dry” weeks out there. But he doesn’t wear the teatowel around the house.
The Boy went back to Edinburgh in September, a month before his term was due to start (we wonder what her name is) and at the same time He departed for a month in Philadelphia to learn some fancy new banking system – at his time of life! Then She took us to Dotty Dorothy’s cattery so that She and The Girl could go to the States for a week as well. He was working not far from the largest shopping mall on the East Coast, and She had not been to Philly since the Bi-Centennial. Apparently they met up with a nice Australian girl and her little boy who drove them to the mall, to Amish Country, to the mall, sightseeing in downtown Philly, to the mall …….
The Girl, still trying to pass her driving test, is also trying to find a job that does not interfere with her social life, but no luck so far. She has abandoned nursery nursing, and is taking a training course in business administration. She has been offered some jobs already but they are in places inaccessible without a car, which is where we came in… And she is always on the phone, sometimes two phones at the same time.
We hear The Boy is working on his dissertation (allegedly), learning to salsa, doing lots of jitsu as well as tai chi, running the jitsu web page and generally having a good time. He’s now a dark blue belt which permits him to be an instructor. He has applied to teach English in Japan next year, so the Oldies are getting out the airline timetables and counting the Air Miles.
It will soon be time for us to doze in the white room and dream of turkey.
A very happy Millennium to those of you who think it is about to happen, and Happy New Year to those who believe it has already happened, or are content to wait another year – and have another party!
Be kind to your pets.
(on behalf of Her, Him, The Boy and The Girl)
Judith ([email protected])