don’t suppose you’re exactly waiting with baited breath (whatever that means) to read a year’s worth of news from the Barneybees Bunch, but such as it is, here it is, and there’s not a lot-
Valerie now has a one day per week job at Catfield 1st School, and she loves it. She still gets a sprinkling of supply work, and the monthly cheque is a comfort. My season fell a little short of last year (this is Neil talking- I can’t be doing with that 3rd person stuff- I tried it last year and it wasn’t comfy) but I’ve done a brisk trade at the house since closing the studio, so it’s swings and wotsits.
Miriam had her first date, recently (remember she’s not quite six yet)- a boy at school is besotted by her, and invited her for a walk in the woods (chaperoned by his Mother) and back to his for tea. Not a lot of make-up for day-time, just lip gloss, and she does it right; you need to look twice to see it. She changed three times before going. When they got back to his, he invited her up to his room and she said ’No!’ In ten years’ time, I’ll have to be chucking buckets of water over the swains outside, to clear the path.
John, I think, is training for world domination. There’s nothing he can’t do, except beat me at ‘Mastermind’, and that’s only a matter of time. He recently graduated to playing tenor recorder. I was introduced to the beast, on a school visit. It’s over two feet long. I couldn’t even get my fingers to cover all the holes.
ell that’s about it for news. Barneybees isn’t a front runner for news,
really, but it’s ‘Mega-ace’ for Christmases (that’s playground-speak for
‘jolly good’) andChristmas is the business in hand.
Our lovely old house will be all a-sneeze with seasonal vapours; there’ll be the merry chortle of head-cracks on beams (I hold the franchise), carol-mangling on the piano (all-comers’ free-style), and late at night all will be a-snooze with the snuffle of happy ghosts raising their glasses of ‘time was’.
From Valerie and Neil, and Miriam and John, (not forgetting Barney, the brown-nosed wonderdog), a very Merry Christmas to Everybody!