A 4 year old’s Christmas card etiquette

Not only do I now have my Christmas cards to do (which I still haven’t done), I now have Girl Lacer’s to do to, as they have a Christmas card ‘post box’ at nursery. Girl Lacer has already had six cards, so I had to sit her down to do Christmas cards this afternoon after nursery and of course as she can’t write yet, it was really me doing them. So it started with me saying “Ok, who do you want to send Christmas cards to?”, she named a few names, so we did those, she can write her name just so at least she was doing that and doing a few doodles and then she couldn’t think of anymore to send Christmas cards to (this was after the second card) so she kept asking “Who are my friends?”, now I know reasonably well who are here friends, at least who are the ones I see her outside nursery with and who she talks about, so we did those and that ended up being about half the class and at about that point, she wasn’t even writing her name and had even given up drawing kisses, so there I was writing her name and then switching to my left hand so I could fake her kisses! But I was reasonably happy we’d covered everyone who meant something to Girl Lacer but obviously they’re her friends, not mine, so I wasn’t totally convinced I hadn’t missed someone, so I had the class list on my lap and I was going “What about x?”, “What about y?”, names I’d rarely, if ever had heard her mention, some of the names I hadn’t even known before looking at the list they were even in nursery, but you know 4 year olds, still not terribly good at names and I think she didn’t want to miss anyone by mistake either, so in the end we (or should I say I, complete with the fake kisses) wrote a card for everyone, now I’m all christmas carded out and I still haven’t done mine!

3 Random things

1. I am really enjoying Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, in my effort to read more ‘high brow’ stuff over recent months this has consequently been the first book that I have actively really enjoyed, literal can’t put down stuff, however after reading the likes of Greene and Brookner, Mosse’s prose at first did seem a little ‘clunky’, with everyone seemingly ‘tanned’ or ‘deathly pale’ or in one case ‘pale underneath her tan’. I have been marvelling at how I can look at the 900 odd pages of Dicken’s Copperfield and fail dismally to get through it, get totally put off by the similar length of Darkmans (that and the opening chapter going on and on and on about the channel tunnel), yet Labyrinth is a similar length but I know when I reach the end (which won’t be that long) it will still probably leave me wanting more. I have been reading the literary greats in an attempt to improve myself as a writer and it has helped but reading some of them have at times felt like too much hard work and not enough enjoyment. It’s also made me realise what’s more important to me, prose or plot? As a reader most definitely plot, something has to happen, it has to transport me somewhere and that is what I want to write as a writer, no attempts at exploring the human inner psyche for me. So as the Christmas season approaches it’s time to get out the fun stuff, snuggle down on the sofa next to the Christmas tree and immerse myself in Carcassonne.

2. Me and the kids had to leave the house ultra early today as I had an appointment at the nurse’s. It was bitterly cold but refreshing to be out amongst the rest of the commuters, I still miss that after 4 years of giving up work, the daily ebb and flow of people going their way. Still, the early appointment meant that we could get into town earlier than normal, we had an almost personal performance from the shopping mall’s animatronic bears and the shoe shop was quiet so got served straight away. Girl Lacer has gone up a shoe size and luckily Clarks are still selling boots (you half expect them to be selling sandals by now) so she has swapped her pair of nifty brown ones for a pair of very glam pink ones plus a new pair of black with cool pink velcro strap trainers, I indulge my inner shopper through my daughter’s wardrobe, I know I do.                                                                                                    

3. Thanks to the always amusing junk e-mail from Innocent, I have discovered the most amazing plant company, Rocket Gardens, they sell ‘instant gardens’ (mmm to get an instant garden from my garden would involve a flame thrower for my overgrown vines, a rocket launcher for my disintegrating raised patio, lots and lots of compost and the free services (if only) of the gorgeous Diarmuid Gavin). But thinking a little smaller, Rocket Gardens look great, according to their website you can buy instant herb or vegetable gardens, where they’re young plants ready to go into the ground. Now when we moved into our current flat, it was our first with a garden and I was very very keen at first, then another baby later, a discovery that my garden was a very popular hang out for snails and that the only thing that grew from seed in my garden were weeds, my garden has morphed into an embarrassment that I have so far not let any of my friends see (dreading playdates this summer!). But anyway I did try planting my own little herb and veg garden, the veg garden never took off but the herb garden did quite well into last summer’s heavy rains flooded my containers, but after discovering Rocket Gardens I am in the mood to try again, I’m thinking if I can get my plants already a little grown, then maybe that’s the hard part done for me? Or at least one of the hard parts anyway! There is just so much choice on their website though and alot of it can be grown in containers, which is good for a small garden refuse tip owner like me, what should I go for? Just try again with my herbs, after loosing them last summer I’m getting sick to death of having to buy them from a supermarket or do I try the growing veg option a la Jamie in the promised hope that if my kids help me grow some veg they may actually eat it? Ah I don’t know! Still I think I’m definitely going to go for this, I should hopefully get some money for Christmas / my birthday and the prices are reasonable for a lot of plants or if Santa Claus is reading this . . . actually I know what Santa Claus (Mr. Lacer) is getting me, a digital video camera, more on that later!