4th December
Spencer’s birthday today! He seemed pleased with the screwdriver set and pair of trousers that I bought him, and was quite overcome with the David Attenborough book that the children had queued up for to be signed. The only dampener on the day was the fact that I had booked a table at Pizza Express for the two of us to have a meal in the evening, and my Tesco Clubcard vouchers hadn’t turned up in time (despite being posted on 30th November). Therefore I had to pay cash for the meal.
5th December
Tesco Clubcard vouchers for Pizza Express arrived.
6th December
I had planned a trip to Costco and Makro in Reading with my friend Sheila
today. Spencer had “other important things to do”, which I guess was
his Christmas shopping. Before I could get going though, the phone
rang and it was the northern branch of the family from Bedfordshire.
This was quite unusual for 9am on a Sunday morning, so I enquired if
everything was alright. Apparently, at 6am three young men had broken
into their house through their front door, with intentions of burglary.
What these three men didn’t know was that the children of the house do a
morning paper round, and therefore Mark (the Dad) was already up. He
chased the men up the road in his PJ’s but was no match for them in bare
feet, and they sped away in their getaway car. The police and tracker
dogs were called, and arrived within 10 minutes, and as we were speaking on
the phone, the Scenes of Crime officer was fingerprinting their front door.
Fortunately, nothing had been taken, although it had shaken them up greatly.
Probably not as shaken as the burglars were, catching sight of Mark in his
PJ’s I thought privately.
As I drove back from Makro later on, loaded up with 48 toilet rolls, and a
giant box of soap powder, I resolved to always put the chain on the huge oak
door of the Manor every night from now on. After all we do have a few
priceless objects that are worth stealing.
8th December
Carol Service at the children’s school tonight. They are running two services back to back as they can’t fit everyone in the school Hall at the same time. Unfortunately, we have to sit through both of them, as Violet-Elizabeth is singing the “Once in Royal” solo in one and Marcus is singing a solo in the other.