The last weekend before Christmas, and I had to work on Saturday night – we were moderately busy, but heavy rain and wind meant that we were not as busy as I had expected. It’s odd how the weather affects noise complaints.
On Sunday I went to the annual carol concert at my church, where I did one of the traditional readings, before we went to Kate and Simon’s. My sister Pauline always has a family get together on Boxing Day, but both Simon and Kate, and Matthew will be going away on Boxing Day and so Simon and Kate organised a pre-Christmas gathering for us all. Kate made us a superb buffet (she is an excellent cook) and we had a really nice time just chatting and catching up.
I was briefly impressed when my Dad asked Simon to pass him an i-pad. It turned out that he merely wanted something to lean on while writing a cheque.
For any younger readers a cheque is where someone uses a pen to write an amount of money on a piece of paper, and then you go out and take it to a bank, as long as it’s during the time when the bank in open, and join a queue of people who also have similar bits of paper, and when you get to the counter a nice lady puts the details in her computer which saves you the trouble doing it in comfort at home, and she takes the piece of paper from you to keep in a safe place, and then kindly takes the time to tell you all about all the things that the bank can do for you if you want it to. You still haven’t got your money though. You have to wait three days for that to happen. Last time that Dad gave me a cheque I tried to pay it in using an ATM. It couldn’t read Dad’s writing. You will have gathered that I am a great fan of bank transfers, although in Dad’s case internet banking must not be encouraged.
We had time for “team photos”, taken by Chantal;
And then by me
The pooch is Phil, Simon and Kate’s dog. We left ours at home, since they take up an awful lot of space.
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
