A Day In The Life Of An Untrusty Hound - It's A Dogs Life Part 1

I have heard it said (due to the fact I have wozzin' big ears), that "a dogs life" is a bad thing.  I say chish and nonsense to that.  How do I know?  Because I, my bi-pod friends am a dog.  To be more precise, I am a full-fledged, no-nonsense, paws as big as  . . . erm . . big paws, big eared, pointy faced German Shepherd.  I am beautiful, sleek, fluffy and a dream to live with.

I Waged A War On Myself - Now I Am A Peaceful Nation!

Today as I wandered aimlessly with my untrusty hound, I contemplated the differences between me now and young me. I guess the one main point that shines like a Hollywood movie star's mirror is how happy I am being me now, but I really was not all those years ago.

Guilty until proven innocent

There's an épicerie anglo-saxonne in our town. I go there whenever I need some Anglo-Saxon groceries. Which is rather often.

As I walked into the shop this afternoon, the shopkeeper gave me a knowing smile of recognition. The kind of knowing smile I imagine a porn shop employee giving his regulars whenever they pop in for their weekly or perhaps daily set of porn DVDs. The kind of smile in which only one half of the mouth curves upwards. A leery smile that says, "I know exactly what you're after."

Why I am Crap At Dieting

Tell me I am dieting and immediately my mind will have put its little mental running shoes on, tied them up neatly, donned some lycra and be running off to the nearest shop to buy a mental vanilla slice.  Then, as ever, my whole being will follow suit.  Within a day of ordering me a diet, I will be

giggling and showing you how to eat a vanilla slice without getting the middle bit to hit the floor.

Tell-tail

One of my cats is a squealer.

She doesn't meow plaintively to attract passing tomcats. She'd have great difficulty doing that from the confines of a third-floor flat. Even if she weren't spayed.

Nor does she serenade the full moon or late at night when her human servants are trying to sleep. 

Oh no. This kitty is a tell-tale, a blabberer, a grass, a snitch.

The Joy Of Hangovers . . it's all about the sex and bacon

Your eyes open and the umpa band start off testing their foot pumps on the big drum in your head. Movement, yeah, let's try getting up.  The once rhythmical beat now steps it up to number 11, brain is now thumping and screaming at the inside of the skull, it would seem your brain wants out.  

Learning A New Language by a Noniglot

It is fair to say that unlike my sister-in-law who who is a polyglot and speaks fluent English (oh, she's German by the way), French, Spanish, German (obvs) and some others I can't recall, I am a noniglot.  I glot in no other tongue but the mother, and for me that is English (I am figuring that you guessed that bit).

Web

Spiraling
spinning
the flutter unnoticed, time and space
an open silent yawn.
No grace
here.
Falling thickly,
dense with expectation
wrapped so tightly it chokes.
At the bottom.
Dead
solid invisible.
But then
filament, twining lace
fuses, glowing
with connection.

IF HAYNES DID OWNERS MANUALS FOR CATS AND DOGS . . . The cats would burn them

One of them is plotting, the other enjoying the sun

In my span on this round spinny thing, I have been the owner of Goth, Hamlet, Jasper, Pippa & Jess, all of which were cats.  I have also been the owner of Judas, Jack, Nikki and (still owning) Sasha all of which were/are dogs.  Apart from the obvious different species thing, these furry compadres we allow into our home are so streets apart from each other it is unreal.  There is a gaping chasm of what we allow one species to do, and what we allow the other.  I shall proffer some explanations for you:

Eight Minutes.

I'm not the most, er, confident flyer.

There's something about being hurtled through the air in a big heavy metal object that is unnatural and wrong.

Yes, I know, physics, science, Newton's laws, Bernoulli, etc, etc.

It doesn't change my feeling: planes are not NATURAL.

Akimbo

It's not exactly the world's most flattering position. But I've been in worse. Even voluntarily.

Lying almost flat out on my back with my knees higher than my head, the view is certainly interesting. Though more interesting for some than for others. After all, I'm well acquainted with my own junk. I'm just grateful I thought to get a trim last week, and the redness and swelling has had time to disappear. Otherwise I really would be a sight for sore eyes. Because, as every girl knows, bushy is not pretty.

Fifty Strands of Grey

I guess I should be happy that I didn’t inherit my maternal grandfather’s follicular genes. For the nearly 20 years that I knew him, his pate was always as hairless and shiny as a brass doorknob.

Ever the joker, he would quip, “It’s better to have no hair than to be bald.” Not really sure of the difference, I would prefer to be spared either option. Which is why I am forever grateful that the chromosomal coin-toss that is meiosis weeded out this unfortunate trait before it reached me.

My cousin, like his father before him, is less fortunate than I in this respect. Although he is just a few months older than me, he is already well on the road to hairlessness, his forehead having set out in his teens on a quest to merge with his nape. Meanwhile I, albeit likewise almost pushing the half-century, still have a full head – even though there are doubts about the fullness of the inside thereof.

Unlike

Last night I quit Facebook. 

Standing in the kitchen as my pasta boiled and my beef bubbled, I typed a two-word, one-hashtag farewell on my phone, closed the app and then uninstalled it. This morning, I opened the browser on my computer and symbolically deleted the Facebook bookmark from the toolbar. Then I did the same on my laptop. 

I haven’t yet gone the full Monty and closed my account. That still feels oddly taboo. Though I hope to do so eventually.

And do you know what? I feel free.

MY MOMENT OF PASSION

I step from the hot sand with scorched feet

You send your hands to entwine in my toes from the ocean deep

Gently caressing, enticing me in.

I wade in further you tantalise my legs,

Lapping round me,

Flicking tendrils of cool water about my thighs

Your waves encircle my hips and waist

You pull me to you.

Winning Euromillions. The Change Being A Millionaire Has Made To Me

I have lived a happy life from the off.  As many a comedy script writer has done, we were indeed so poor that steak dinner meant shaving one steak into tiny thin strips and making it a stir fry for 5.  My clothes weren't so much as hand me downs from my sisters more like heirlooms from generations past.  Let's put it this way, when most people were squeezing into the latest Speedo swimsuits, I was still in knitwear . . you get my drift here.

A cure for writer's block

Many authors experience writer's block; a kind of literary constipation that causes their ideas to back up in their minds like turds in a reticent intestine. 

That's particularly true for writers like us, who write shit at the best of times. To help unclog your cortical colon, I therefore offer the following short film in the hope that it will trigger verbal diarrhoea rather than the bodily discharges that this product elicits from the anally challenged.

I wish you a productively crappy weekend.

LEST WE FORGET . . SUN FOR ALL!

I just want to be covered in sunshine . . you remember it don't you?  The warm stuff from the sky that makes the world all glowy and stuff.

For anyone needing to know what sunshine looks like here is a little reminder . . LEST YOU HAVE FORGOTTED:

Yes, there really are pretty colours under the white stuff/brown puddly things.  There really are skies with shiny warm stuff a happenin'  Keep the faith people.

SUMMER IS COMING

Snapchat, Snatchsnap. Time To Wise Up!

A Note To Youth Of Today

This snapchat shot was seen by over 20,000 people

I am writing this hoping you are well and with an even greater hope you can understand.

I was born to an era that didn't use mobile phones, had no great interest in computers as they were things the size of wardrobes, and to take a photograph you had to:

1. borrow the family camera 
2. ensure you had a film in it, praying like billio Mum had bought the expensive 36 exposure rather than the 24. 
3. get everyone possible to stand together for picture
4. Take photo.
5. when you had finished the amount of photo's in the camera (ie 24 or 36), go to town and leave film with a developer shop, or later in the 80's send in post in a little self sealing plastic bags.
6. Wait a couple of days
7. Go to town and pick up photos.

Omphaloskepsis (navel-gazing)

One does not gaze

Using one's navel

Nor that of others too

One gazes as if

Perusing one's navel

I can and so can you.

Navel gazing 

Isn't social

It's purely about me.

FALLING DOWN - CHAPTER ONE - I HAVEN'T FALLEN YET

It’s funny the way life make it’s way through events.  Much like a river, sometimes it bends and twists through rocks and hills and sometimes it just overpowers the obstacles in it’s way and just forces change.  And change is something that my life knows all about.  My life changed, the life of my hometown changed, and, really, the life of a nation changed.  The sixties meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  For me it was my coming of age and formed who I am today.

I guess every parent figures out their child’s destiny in their heads.  I guess my parents were no different.  They probably had me pegged for finishing up my high school studies and then working as a seamstress with my mama until I married some boy who worked down at the mill.  They probably had me pegged for being a little old housewife with a bunch of kids running around by the time I was 22.  In their perfect world I’d be on the PTA and attending church on Sundays.  But like we talked before, life is like a river.  Sometimes the current just draws you in and you just don’t know where you will end up.

Lumbersexual

Lumbersexual (adj.):

Pertaining to a person - usu. male, usu. city-dwelling - who has a penchant for wearing flannel shirts, particularly plaid or checked ones, even though he is more likely to spend his days in front of a computer screen than hacking down trees in British Columbia. Said shirt may not be tucked into the trousers for fear of looking uncool.

Optional accessories: Beard, axe, sandals, outdoorsy picture to pose in front of.

Optional personality: Hipster, maniac (axe-wielding)

Not to be confused with: Homosexual (loves sex with homogenised milk), antihomosexual (hates milk-fuckers), metrosexual (sex in the subway), asexual (sex from behind), intersexual (sex with foreigners), intrasexual (prefers people from their own country), parasexual (sex with ghosts), unsexual (headache) and psychosexual (Freud).

See also: Whetstone, Gillette, lubricant, therapy.

Images from my run

 An orange bobble hat wearing a tracksuit-sporting runner;
A woman surreptitiously looking at my crotch;
A beggar sitting on the pavement directly in front of the door of a tobacconist's shop, his legs splayed, an arm outstretched towards exiting customers;
A boy gently cradling his toy monkey in the crook of his left arm; he, his father, mother and sister all hold hands;
Three smashed car side windows;
A shiny golden Madonna statue bathed in sunlight;
Leeks on a display outside a shop;
A skateboarder shooting down a steep hill on the road, then swerving to a stop;
Two brown leaves, their dry sides curled upwards;
An old woman, her hair died bright red, dragging a brightly-coloured shopping trolley behind her;
Soap bubbles blown away by the wind;
The skin on my arms, not quite as pale as my top and sweatbands in spite of the season;
A tiny child on a correspondingly tiny three-wheeled scooter;
Another, older, beggar, this one sitting quietly with his dog, a cardboard sign explaining his plight;
Lovers embracing, a stripe of silver sequins splashed across the handbag slung across her back;
A Goth-like woman with a young dog, her tights splattered with paint;
A serious-looking little girl on a bicycle, a pink hood pulled over her head;
A wheelchair-bound man shaking hands with a friend in full Muslim garb, the latter's white cap and gown perfectly matching his Apple ear buds;
A pink, horse-shaped helium balloon trying to resist its owner's tug;
A woman with a strikingly upturned nose-tip smiling for a photo on a bridge;
A man looking over his shoulder to see what side I'll pass him on;
A boy in a fluorescent orange helmet parking his fluorescent orange tricycle with fluorescent stabilisers in front of a bakery.

#EyesTightlyOpen 

Just The Two Of Me . . . Being Organised Chaos In One Person

I often wonder whether everyone is the same as me or, whether I am in deed a bit . . .erm . . "special" as my partner tells me.  Not special as in a rare gift from heaven, but special as in a bit tapped/slightly barking/one of gods special people etc.  You see, I am not just Cathi Gaughan, short woman who loves muscles, tattoos has a very eclectic taste in EVERYTHING, and seeks out people who make me laugh and live on the bright side of life.  I am two very different people, both of which are present all the time.

Habits

We are all creatures of habit in one way or another. Although I don't consider myself obsessive, I have a number of habits that I stick to religiously:

• I always sleep on the right side of double beds - even if the other side is unoccupied.
• I can't stand poorly stacked plates, etc. in the dishwasher and will always rearrange them. 
• I always take water with me on a run, no matter what the season or the temperature. 
• After a run, I always stretch my calves, then my quads, then my hamstrings, always starting with the right side.
• I feel somehow naked if go outside without wearing a cap. Except when going to official or business appointments,when it feels perfectly normal.
• I drink three cups of coffee a day; two in the morning, one after lunch.
• I always add a shot of liquid caramel and some vanilla extract to my second cup of coffee of the day. But never to the first.
• Unless I'm changing, I always take off my trousers, pants and socks together.
• When undressing for bed, I always place my wedding ring inside my bracelet on the night stand. When I still wore an earring, I would place that inside the ring. 
• I always carry my keys in my left trouser pocket and my phone in my right pocket, where I always keep a paper tissue, mostly used.
• As a remnant from the time we lived in the States and were six hours "behind" Europe, I check my e-mail on my phone before getting out of bed every morning.
• After showering, I always dry my face first, before moving on to my hair, back, arms, front, groin, bum, legs and feet. In exactly that order.
• I always walk around the apartment naked and dress within view of the buildings opposite, even though I know people can see me. My neighbour has even commented that we effectively live in each other's apartment, though I refuse to take the hint.
• I wear my watch on my right wrist rather than my left, as most other people do.
• I also dress to the right. Don't ask me why.
• I always put my left lens in first. I also remove that one first
• For a while, I would systematically blow a raspberry just before sneezing - all in the same breath, of course (and it's not easy!). Until it drove my wife crazy.
• And when wiping my bum, I always ... 

 Never mind.

But...

Day 53,824 of Snowmageddon.

Boston has gotten 72 inches of snow in the past 20 days. There is more in the forecast.

I woke up this morning to see MORE snow coming from the sky.

Penance Diarrhea

I'm one of those people that get diarrhea so much that I know how to spell it on the first try. Indian take-out? Diarrhea. Public speech? Diarrhea. I get pregnant diarrhea, I get period diarrhea. When one of my kids tells me they have diarrhea, I promptly, immediately, get diarrhea.

It all goes back to my trip to Haiti in March of 1996, my senior year of Christian High School. While most teenagers took off for the sexy heat of Mexican beaches during Spring Break, I was determined to pay Jesus back for the sins of my Spring Breaks of 1994 and 1995 and so instead, went with a dozen classmates and a couple teachers to help the good people of Port Au Prince, Haiti.

All lies

You lie. All the time. I know you do.

You sound nice and friendly and sociable and relaxed. You make all the right noises, all the right faces. But that's not you. It's all lies. All a façade.

You're not a nice person. Not someone people can like, respect, honour, look up to. 

Where Do Squirrels Really Hide Their Nuts?

It has long been believed that squirrels bury their nuts for winter.  On interviewing Sir Douglas Pine from the Trantford Woods, it turns out not quite to be the case any longer.

Treetoppers new Minister of Finance Douglas Pine, met with me today to discuss the new trends hitting their nation.

Why I Don't Sunbathe . . . Lessons From Yorkshire

The sun and I have a very passionate relationship and it is one filled with love.  It is therefore an ironical happenstance that I live in Yorkshire.  Garton-on-the-wolds is a place where the skies are usually a myriad shades of grey (and not in a sexy strap you to the bed and tickle you with a paint brush way, more of a wake up look out of the window to hear your head say "sodding grey again").

That Dress

Khalida opened her eyes.  The electricity of her injuries flooding through every fibre of her being, and hitting the pain receptors in her brain like a wrecking ball.  She started throwing up mental blocks to get the hurricane of emotions and thoughts to abate, allowing her to strategize some sort of plan.  First step, breathe, restore normality to her racing heart, slow the pulse and feed the much needed oxygen to her brain.   

She sank back onto the concrete wall welcoming its coolness against her back.  Her brains survival instincts tried to kick in.  She ripped away the sleeves from her blouse, even now, after all she had been through, this one act seemed to spit in the face of all she was running from and even as she tied the tourniquet around her thigh she celebrated her victory.  However short lived it had been, she had indeed won. 

My first French kiss

Like most children, I was appalled by the very notion of French kissing when I first heard about it, at the age of 9 or 10.

Whereas I had accepted with near equanimity the news that I might one day put my willy inside a girl's fanny (I believe my reaction was "OK"), it was entirely inconceivable to me that I would even consider placing my tongue into a girl's mouth and accepting hers into mine. 

And even less likely that I should ever desire to do so. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF REEDIN' AND RITIN'

If there is one thing I cant stand its people that dont no how to use grammer and spelling properly.  I mean like communication is what seperates us from the animals.  Well theres that and apposable thums.  I mean whats the point of even being human if we cant properly right to eachother in away that is understood.

Don't . . . . How To Train A Teenager.

I'll admit it, in my children's formative lives I was one of those lackadaisical, argue with me not, I'm doing it right, type of parents.  The house was always a cross between happy chaos and complete and utter downfall of an organised dream. 

Being brought up properly, as my Mum reminded me often, I therefore tried to completely reject all forms of behavioural tactics my parents had used on me believing they were too harsh and didn't work.  Mayhap the fact I have unbridled respect for my mother and would never have contemplated back chat, actually taking it so far as arguing with her or telling her she was wrong is tantamount (in my brain) to putting my own head on the floor, donning a pair of hob nail boots and giving myself a good kicking.  Strange that I never quite put two and two together, but, that's me!

Eleven Reasons I Am Over Winter.

I don't like winter.

I have spent most of the past two decades making plans to leave New England, mostly because of how much I loathe the winters here. I had NEARLY made a break for sunnier climes 13 years ago when I was first dating my my husband.

But the bastard told me he couldn't "do a long distance relationship."

Okay, then.

And though THAT particular decision to stick around actually worked out okay for me, I have spent every January through April regretting my choice of life geography.

The road to Hell

The road to Hell, it is said, is paved with good intentions.

That is of course utter twaddle, if you'll excuse my French-Canadian.

The road to Hell is paved with tequila shots, late nights, caramel popcorn, mojitos, tattoos, dope, swearing, Doritos, premarital and recreational sex, fart-smelling, banoffee pie, sick jokes and, most importantly, chocolate. For these are the things one ought not engage in or consume to any pleasurable degree, if the Church were to have its way.

Fascism In Food

I have not been playing out in the arena of fitness for long.  Most people my age (40 something's) have either kept up their athleticism from their school days and lived a life of lean, healthy fun or packed it all in when 16 struck and had more of a lean towards couch life, interspersed with going to the pub on a Friday.  The only regular exercise being the walk to and stumble back from said pub.

Eloquence

All relative

On Sunday I have a trail running race. So this lunchtime I went for a final taper jog; a gentle half-hour, three-mile leg-stretcher. The sun was out and my music was great, so I just bobbed along in my own little bubble.

When I got home, my body said, “Nice warmup! What are we going to do now?”

I hadn’t broken into a sweat, my heart rate was barely up and I wasn’t even breathing hard. In fact, apart from the usual post-run glow, it was almost as if I hadn’t done a thing.

My Life In Dust

Her at number 53 thinks me as some sort of lower class personage, just 'coz of what I does for my weekly wage. Whilst Rev. Kirkman says he puts me right up there on one of them pedistills like he does with our lord's boy Jesus. I thinks that it is sorts like me what this world thinks it can do without but can't. We are the shadows that no one really notices, yet every office has one or two of our likes, mollying around after hours, putting the papers in the bin, the plugs in the plug holes and changing the tea stained surfaces to look likes they been bought brand new like.

Definitely non-fiction

I realised something today: I'm shit at fiction.

Give me an autobiographical topic, and I can whittle on seemingly endlessly about the weird, wonderful, wonderfully weird and weirdly wonderful aspects of people I've met, situations I've found myself in and the ova I inadvertently yet almost invariably got on my facade. The words, lines, paragraphs spill out onto the page cathartically and I will lose myself in the minutiae and absurdity of my predicament and the inevitability of my embarrassment.

At the hairdresser

I should have known better than to go for a haircut on a Tuesday. That’s the day when the experienced coiffeurs, exhausted from their Sunday and Monday off, leave the salon almost entirely in the incapable hands of their trainees.

It started as it always does, just inside the door, with the standard, raised-eyebrow look that said, “What can I do for you, Sir?” To which I replied, “I’d like a baguette and four croissants.”

Last Word

Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.  Sure you can do things that may hedge the bets in your favour but at the end of it all, it is just a game of chance.  Such is the life of a gambler...and, no, we ain't talkin' cards or dice here.  We are talking lives.  A life on the line is the ultimate gamble.  Whether it's your own life or someone else's, it all amounts to the same thing.  A life lost is a life lost.  You die and it doesn't matter any more.  You kill someone or are somehow responsible for them losing their lives and you ultimately have to deal with that on your conscience for the rest of your life...no matter how short it may be.

Deflation

Deflation, defloration, deforestation, devastation, discombobulation.
Inflation, infatuation, infestation, infiltration, incantation.
Reflation, reformation, reaffirmation, regurgitation, reinitiation.

The hamster got off its wheel and wondered whether this was all its life was about: get on, spin, get off, eat, shit, sleep. And maybe pee. The drunk peered down into her empty glass and considered ordering another. Yet another? Why not? The butterfly landed on a flower far too delicate to hold such a body. And promptly slipped off. A hand reached up and stroked the chin that should have been shaved two days ago were it not for laziness and its owner's penchant for the scratching sound his daughter's fingers made as they dragged across her maker's stumble. A fading, yellow PostIt note sat on his desk declaring "Tuesday!" urging him to do something he had long forgotten what it should remind him about. The grass rustled to itself, content that it had fulfilled its purpose and was being watered for its efforts.

At precisely that moment, the sailor looked up as one tiny cloud passed in front of the sun. "This is it," he thought. "This is finally it. I have all that I need."

A six-year-old amused himself blowing up a polka-dot red balloon and letting the air out again. In, out. Inflation, deflation. Incantation, discombobulation. Reflation, regurgitation.

Yes, no. Indeed.

Horseshoe Harry

Horseshoe Harry claimed the distinctive red spot on his face was a birthmark, but those who knew him as a young man - amongst whom I may count myself - beg to differ. 

We remember all too well the prank he tried to play as a 15-year-old, dressing up his neighbour's donkey in a tutu and his Momma's bra. He succeeded in this first part, but when he then tried to climb on the unfortunate animal's back from behind, it gave him such a kick in the kisser that Harry was left scarred for life.

Bagpipes

Wamperwamp. 

That's the sound that bagpipes make. It's true. I have it on good authority: it's what I dreamt. And I wrote it down the moment I woke up so I wouldn't get it wrong.

So "wamperwamp" it is, whatever else you think it might be.

Platform K, 10.48pm

The metal bench is cold and hard, but he’s too tired to stand.

He checks his watch. Two minutes. 

A chill wind blows down the exposed platform, prompting him to pull his collar up tightly around his neck. Should have worn a warmer jacket. Hopes he won’t catch a cold and have to spend another weekend in bed.

Je suis Charlie

Eyebrows: Mirror to the History of the World

"Strong eyebrow game, bro."
But it wasn't always that way.
No, the eyebrow (or purpose thereof) has evolved over time.  Closely linked to key events in human history, the eyebrow has it's own story to tell.  From times of yore to the present, the brows have most certainly reflected the culture and values of the day.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth but it wasn't until he proclaimed, "let there be light," that eyebrows became necessary.  At that time man was forced to hunt his prey under an unforgiving and extremely bright sun.  His saving grace was nature's sun visor that perched proudly above his eyes in the form of a magnificent unibrow.  It was that unibrow that allowed humankind to survive and prosper in harsh climates.  Shielding eyes from the sun and providing shade for children to gather under, the eyebrow had made it's stamp on human history.

Why I Hate Purple

Why I Hate Purple

Inter planetary space hopping is my daily grind. One alien sphere to the next selling my wares. Trinkets from the old town of Yargul bought for a handful of yogs, sold to the artisans of the Joshka city for my body weight in yogs.

In defence of blunt instruments

Blunt instruments get a bad rap.

Bedevilled by writers, blunt instruments are forever being placed at the scene of the crime, used to bludgeon an innocent victim to death, to dash in someone's brains, to end a life precipitously, prematurely and no doubt brutally.

Never are blunt instruments portrayed in a positive light. I mean, when did you last hear about someone snuggling up to a blunt instrument, about a blunt instrument saving someone from mortal danger, about the happiest day in a person's life involving a blunt instrument? Not once have my children requested a blunt instrument for their birthday or Christmas, nor - callous as kids can be - have they ever expressed a wish to one day be blunt instruments themselves.

It was a dark and stormy night ...

Rain spatters against the window, hurling itself against the panes like an unbidden visitor determined to gain admittance. 

The moon, shielded from illumination by the combined presence we call our planet, casts a thick, impenetrable pall broken only by the occasional street lamp and passing car. Other than that, the gloom is complete, the world has disappeared.

Which Ear Is Your Favourite?

Clarice Starling

16 Ericson Place

New York

Dr W Graham

935 Pennsylvania Avenue,

NW Washington,

D.C. 20535-0001 

Dear Uncle Will,

Just a quick note as I had to say thank you for such an interesting, and, let's face it, memorable Christmas experience.

We will be picking up Aunty Margo from the psyche ward in a couple of weeks, they say the fits have stopped now and she just has an infrequent bout of running into small corners, but, even that little tick is fading. Tony is still playing with the present you bought him, and vehemently disagrees with Aunt Isabella stating clearly that you are never too young for a Bowie knife. He can't wait till his 6th birthday now!