Knocking on Christmas ’98, and here I am like a news editor in a nightmare- what have I to tell you at all? Compared to all the great goings on of you movers and shakers in the grand metrolopses, the Barneybees Bunch are living in Sleepy Hollow. The children are somewhat taller, I am somewhat- sturdier, shall we say. Valerie is even more patient, and Phoebe seems to have atrophied into bouncing puppy mode.
ohn moved on to 6th form College with his fistful of ‘A’s and ‘A stars’ in the GCSE results. He’s now studying maths, physics and computer technology for ‘A’ level, in Norwich, so to facilitate travel, he now rides a scooter. The fist time he came home in bike gear, I thought we were being raided by the SAS.
iriam is heavily into synchronised swimming
and theatre. At the moment, she’s rehearsing
her own first swimming solo, for competition,
‘Captain Stirrick’ with the Norfolk Youth Theatre, and ‘Wyrd Sisters’ (Terry Pratchett’s spoof on Macbeth) with the school drama club. Meanwhile she generates a steady flow of certificates of merit for various subjects of school work.
alerie’s future at Catfield School is looking just a little bit doubtful. Norfolk Education’s Godfather is against small village schools (never mind the quality, feel the cost) and there is a devious plan to kill them off, via federation into groups, necessitating re-staffing, so when the music stops, all the current staff will be out, and the collaborators, hit men and scheisters will be in. It hasn’t happened yet, but no doubt it will, sometime.
n the other hand, I’ve been doing rather well. Too late to go to press last year, I had an incredibly good exhibition, followed this year by a very good season- best for six or eight years, not that there had been much to beat, and I finished the season maybe 30% up on last year. So with the steady stream of supply teaching, extra to Valerie’s one and a half day regular job, we should be able to put on a ‘brave show’ at Christmas. John just scared us by contracting glandular fever, confirmed by blood test, then bouncing back after a mere week, though his energy levels will take a while longer.
his year there will be just the four of us (with possible visits from John’s girlfriend; very good influence on him, she is). Valerie’s Dad will join us for New Year, but Christmas will be different again, with the children being so much older- in attitude as well as height. Over the last year, it has been more noticeable than ever that when the four of us eat a leisurely supper together, it’s not so much two parents and two children as four friends. esterday we went to a big Christmas Craft Fair to do
some Christmas shopping. After a grand tour of inspection together, we went off separately to shop in secret, each hoping not to be observed by the others. It got quite hilarious in spots. At a stall full of traditional wooden toys, I remembered the drum that Santa Claus accidentally put his foot through, when coming down the chimney, and how he stayed to mend it with Grandma’s sugar tape from the sideboard drawer,(but how did he know it was there? Well, Santa knows everything) and the tommy-gun with its not quite dry black and silver paint because, working for the Admiralty, they were the only colours Uncle Harry could ‘find’.
remembered more recently creeping about on squeaky floorboards with pillowcases bulging with parcels as noisy as restless piglets, and hoping I’d got the sacks the right way round. Well some of the work has reduced, but the tingle factor is as strong as ever. As I may have intimated before, Christmas with the family at Barneybees is simply magic. We wish you your share of magic this Christmas.
With love from Valerie, Neil, Miriam, John and Phoebe.