Deb’s Digest

I’ve arrived rather late at P.D.James’s novels. I’ve been looking for ages for a book I can’t put down and I only decided to dip into one of her books when I heard her interviewing the DG of the BBC on Radio 4. She sounded intelligent and forthright and was a formidable interviewer. The book kept me quiet all the way from Euston to Lime Street and right through a football match on television last night. It’s great to have a book to enjoy again.

Apparently the odds of getting six double yolked eggs in a carton of six is a trillion to one. Our local greengrocer used to advertise his large white hens’ eggs as “double yolkers” and promised to replace any that turned out not to be. Over the years, buying a carton a week, I never had cause to ask for any to be replaced. I wonder if he or the hen realised what an extraordinary feat this was.

We’ve just had a weekend of enjoying Christmas presents. My present to my husband was a weekend in London at a hotel overlooking the Thames with a theatre visit on the Saturday night. We went to The Rise and Fall of Little Voice at the Vaudeville Theatre – it was the final performance and the cast were visibly moved by the standing ovation and the flowers that were thrown onto the stage.

On the Saturday afternoon we joined our younger son and his girlfriend for the Christmas present he’d given us – afternoon tea at a Mayfair hotel. It was quite an experience and we’ll remember it for a long time. We were waited on hand and foot and our plates of delicious little sandwiches, warm scones and miniature cakes and desserts were constantly replenished – I have a feeling that Brown’s Hotel might now increase the price of their afternoon teas to cover what we ate between us. We had more than 20 teas to choose from and our cups were topped up every other minute – it was sheer bliss and it’s how I’ll live when I win the lottery.

Our weekend was made all the happier when Oscar’s mum sent us photos of Oscar tucking into homemade fish pie. He’d been off his food and not his usual happy self before we left. However he’s back on top form and ready for the off. His dad thinks the hat I bought him to keep his ears warm is a girl’s but Oscar didn’t seem to mind – he’s as snug as a bug in a rug.

We’ve all just about recovered from whatever horrible bug we had but coming home from London on Sunday night we had the misfortune to share a rail relacement bus with a student who had one of the worst coughs I’ve ever heard and she’d obviously never heard of “coughs and sneezes spread diseases” or handkerchiefs so we’re dosing up on Vicks First Defence and saying our prayers.

Two 2 seater settees and one armchair. Cost £2,500 two years ago. Now £475.

Interested? Want more info? email me on atkinsondeb@hotmail.com

We went to Cambridge at the weekend to see the fantastic light show that concluded the 800th anniversary celebrations. The London son met up with us there – I’m glad he did, otherwise I’d have been looking at the lights on my own. His dad had to go back to the hotel half way through the meal at Loch Fyne suffering from a terrible cough and cold. Seven members of our family have now had this nasty bug which also involves sickness. I have a feeling it’s been the norovirus – the same bug that shuts down cruise ships. I’m hoping that we’re now immune to it and even if it hits our cruise in the summer, we’ll be as right as rain.

It’s lovely to see Oscar eating heartily once again. The bug hit him particularly hard and he couldn’t even be tempted with his favourite carrot crisps. But he’s now rocking away in his car seat to “The Wheels on the Bus” .

peeping through the stairs

and tucking into anything he can lay his hands on

I’m thoroughly fed up now with looking out of the window and seeing white. The novelty has well and truly worn off. One benefit though of this snowy weather has been that we have a family of four redwings living  in our holly bush. The downside of this however  is that our beautiful Christmassy red-berried bush now has approximately six berries left intact – make that five.

The letter wot I wrote to The Times a couple of days ago is in today’s paper. Hurray http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article6973371.ece

The best New Year present was the discovery of Oscar’s blanket in Monsoon! The blanket, which was knitted before he even saw the light of day, has become a bedtime favourite and a real little friend, so it was a disaster when it was mislaid during a New Year’s Eve shopping trip. His dad emailed: “How long would it take you to knit another blanket?”  The wool was out of the bag before you could say knit one purl one and I swear there was smoke coming from my knitting needles. Forget fireworks, forget auld lang syne, midnight found me crossing rows off a knitting pattern – and so did New Year’s morning – but I knew deep down that whatever I produced would never really take the place of the old, greying blanket. So I was absolutely over the moon when Oscar’s mum sent me a text to say that the precious item had been found by Monsoon’s cleaning staff and was awaiting collection. So I can knit at a more leisurely pace now and this one can be a reserve – I think I’ll do what farmers do when they want a sheep to accept a lamb that isn’t theirs – I’ll rub the new blanket on the old – just to be on the safe side!

Tucking into roast goose and bread sauce on New Year’s Day

They say things come in threes – I do hope they’re right. Just before Christmas our Sky box suddenly packed in. On Christmas Eve we developed leaks in the dormer ceilings of two bedrooms (one leak just missing the pile of Christmas presents by inches) and then on Boxing Day something started grating under the car, which rendered it useless until it was fixed today. That’s three mishaps by my reckoning. Please don’t let there be any more.

Oscar found it hard to decide whether his Christmas presents were inside the big boxes or if the boxes were the presents. He went out looking for Santa on Christmas Eve…