I managed a letter finally, including mottos from last year's Christmas crackers which came to hand plus a few illicit drawing pins to keep his poster up above his bed. They are supposed to use Blutack but as the board is rough corkboard it won't stick. Daft! It was VERY hard to think of suitable chit chat. I shall have to start a subsidiary blog of child-friendly blether so I've got something to dip into. Easier to write to a girl maybe? I can't join him on the finer points of tackling, or when it's best to pass. I can commiserate with injuries of course. His friend has a big purple bruise on his forehead and a torn ear. Ye gods!
It simply wouldn't interest Sandy to hear about the chap who just came in to offer me anything I care to glean from his mother's books - for free! It doesn't sound too bad a collection either. A month or so back I bought a nice leatherbound set of Dickens from him which sold at the Aberdeen fair. He offered to sort through them first - please don't! What the civilian would pick out as being useful (modern novels, 'vintage' classics, etc. etc. will almost inevitably leave out the really interesting je ne sais quoi.
I have come to loathe that word 'vintage.' On ebay it is used for everything older than 10 years as far as I can tell, and no-one has the nous to use synonyms to break the monotony.
Sandy wouldn't be interested in that either. What makes a good letter? One that brings news from home at a guess. He told his mother that he worries about us during the week and insisted that he get news straight away 'if anything happens to Mr McSeed, Rabbit, Star, Kes, you Mum, Granny or Grandad.'
So that puts Nick and I in 6/7th position after a hamster. We have decided that if the worst happens to Mr McSeed (he is getting on a bit) he will have to go into the deep freeze till the weekend then be defrosted Friday. Chloë just doesn't fancy arriving at the school to take Sandy away because his hamster has crossed beyond the veil.
She may have to do the same with us.
2 comments:
Having one of each living far away I also came across the problem of written communication. For a while I wrote separately - but then as you say i found it easier to write to daughter than son.
I decided I would treat them equally, plus personal bits and wrote the same to both. It seemed to work well.
Then I worried I was talking down to them so I often copied chunks of emails to you and others, i.e. to friends, and it went very well.
I think Sanders would be interested in your book shop persons and so on, in brief anyway, will keep him in touch with the grandma he knows? plus the pet news of course.
That's useful advice. I really should write to my son too - Cornwall might not be as far as the USA but it feels like it sometimes.
Bye the bye, Now you've called him Sanders I shall always think of him as Kentucky Fry!!
Post a Comment