Christmas Approaches
Dear Ann,
I am a catalogue shopper & I still haven’t worked out which is the greater temptation: going window shopping with a friend just for a look, or browsing through the catalogues that appear in my letter box frequently & sell almost everything that tempts the pocket.
I guess catalogues win though. A couple of months before Christmas I ordered a tall rotating fan, which would fit into any small corner. It was one of those items that you could buy at half price if you bought a certain amount. I thought it reasonable so sent for it.
A few days later I walked out of my bedroom & saw something quite large propped up by the window next to the front door. My immediate thought was that surely the fan was much larger than I thought.
However, on investigation it wasn’t the fan at all. It was half my verandah ceiling, which had fallen down in a storm the evening before. I had heard something crash, but was not going to venture out in the howling wind & heavy rain so forgot about it.
Collapsed verandah roof.
It was evident that water had accumulated inside the roof causing it to crash. Beside it was a strange looking parcel shrink wrapped in blue plastic. I examined it & came to the conclusion that the wrapped parcel had been up in the ceiling & dropped down with the collapse, so I left it where it was.
Then, after notifying the body corporate of the collapse who asked me to take photos for them, I forgot about it.
It was getting close to Christmas & I had things to do. First, I had to go to my bank to get some money & that was my first port of call. I hadn’t been in there for a couple of weeks & when I went in I saw a large bin holding lots of parcels & gifts for the needy. Many of the larger businesses & shops have them.
Later that day when I came home & as I was going through a few things, I came across a big blue teddy bear & a rag doll clown. The latter I acquired from my niece, Michelle at her garage sale when she was relocating to live in Tasmania again. I took a liking to it so brought it home with me.
The teddy bear was your beloved bear Ann, given to me from your car by Richard after you gave him your vehicle. He knew the history behind the bear & told me how it had been given to you by your first love & treasured by you.
I brought teddy home with me after a trip to LA & have had both the teddy & the clown for some years. I loved them nearly as much as their original owners did, but somehow this year I decided to let them make some other little girl or boy happy by placing them both in the bin.
Ann’s Bear & Michelle’s Clown before they headed off on their new adventure.
After my visit to the bank I had arranged to meet Pat & Judy for lunch. Â We do this every week, it’s a ritual we all enjoy.
Normally we do not give each other Christmas gifts, but I decided to break that tradition this year & give them a kilo Christmas Pudding each. After all they were the backbone when working in the Pudding Kitchen for many years. They could run rings around the younger people.
I thought a Christmas pudding would not go astray this year & that I would break with protocol. I put them into two matching Christmas bags that I had bought from a very special place in LA – Swaines – & had been saving for special people so I used them.
I was glad I did. Pat & Judy were delighted with all the love & thought. It didn’t go all my own way though, as next week they had gotten together to buy a very life like brown rabbit with a white baby one to put in my garden, both of which I love. I have lots of gnomes & little animals in my garden most of them given by my two friends & I love them all.
After this interlude, my friend, Ursula had also arranged to meet with me again later in the afternoon, as she had forgotten to give me one of her gifts. That made it another full on day, but that’s what Christmas is all about.
Afternoon tea saw me drinking more coffee as she brought out more Christmas parcels. The sad thing was that our mutual dear friend, Jean was in & out of hospital a few times so it does look as if some Christmas parcels will be taken into the New Year. Jean lives quite a way out from Newcastle, more into the country.
Ursula & I had another lovely hour or so together, with her going home a few days before with a new navy handbag to enhance some new clothes she has been buying &, of course, a Christmas Pudding as well.
She needs that as she was off to spend Christmas with famiiy in Queensland. There are no less than ten of them – daughter, hubby & eight children – so they need an extra pudding!
I came home to hang a New Year Calendar showing some rather nifty ladies doing some rather different things that you would not expect them to be doing, such as walking on stilts, water skiing & playing leap frog!
I don’t know where Ursula gets these great almanacs from but they are certainly different & bring a smile to your face.
I do love Christmas. I also loved my new verandah when it was repaired, so alls well that ends well.
Dawn’s package had to wait until Christmas.
However, let me make you smile & you sill see why my Dad always told me it took awhile for the penny to drop. The blue shrink wrapped parcel that had dropped out of the ceiling had stood by the rubble for two days & when David came down for our chat the following Saturday he naturally had a look at the damage.
When he came inside he remarked that I had a parcel at the front door. “No”, said I, “that’s something that dropped out of the ceiling & I have no idea what it is or why it was there.”
I was so sure until David said “Well it’s addressed to you.” Yes, it was the fan I had ordered among other things!
Love You Dear Friend. . Dawn X O X O