Dear friends, family and rivals,
Merry Christmas! My fabulous family and I will be dominating the next A4 sheet of paper, more if I can think of enough ways to make unemployment sound smashing. Anything for you, cherubs.
Hope you're well. We are. Mark has been posted to Melbourne for a swish, tax-free, wonderful job. This was a direct result of being made redundant in the UK. We'd be exceptionally pally on skype, the warm fuzzy family that we are, if any of us had made the effort to download the software. Instead we opt for ludicrously priced phone calls and use those nuggets of time to argue about finances.
Jenny graduated with a First from a top redbrick university. She remains unemployed and living at home. It's ok though because she thinks she's going to write a novel, despite an inability to write 'Nutella' on the shopping list when she's eaten it all. Does Jenny have the air of an accomplished young lady? Does she marmalade. Laura returned home having finished her end of term reports and her relationship; we're all worried she's going to cry on the chocolate log. Next term she has a great deal of work to complete and we don't think she's got a donkey's kimono what's going on but we continue to pay the fees in the hope someone will either tell or marry her. Sam is growing up fast and we sent him to Harry Potter World last week to convince him to want to go to boarding school. We think he'll be able to get in on an Xbox scholarship. I would list his GCSE grades but he's doing them again next year and writing so many D's will make this letter look like your Trevor's Christmas list. So instead I've listed the prices of your Christmas presents.
- Charlotte's Cadbury Selection Box- £4.95
- Trevor's Carlsberg - Free from the fridge
- Your 1970s Hits CD (The decade we met and had things in common, 40 years ago) £6.99
MC Hammster died. Thanks so much to everyone who came to the funeral. To those who didn't, the transport links in this country aren't bad enough for us to pretend we still like you. Thankfully the realisation that the body was still in the freezer next to the fish fingers, rather than in the submerged shoebox, means there will be a second service.
The family holiday this year was, similar to your trip to the Maldives, an exotic affair. Adam firmly believed Torquay was in China until we parked up outside Waitrose for the weekly shop, leading to another Team Parent victory. Next year's trip to Stockton will be sold as an Indonesian expedition. When he stops tagging along with 'suck your son's soul out' Sally we'll actually go on the Caribbean cruise.
Thanks so much for your round robin; it was great to hear about Charlotte's new Mercedes, job and fiancé. It's a shame she doesn't like chocolate. She sounds like an angel reincarnated into a rainbow. Working 10 hours a week seems a little excessive though? At least that gives her time to volunteer in St Lucia with the turtles. We've done a similar thing and started a snail sanctuary in the shed. You were right about the paper too, exquisite quality, the guinea pigs loved it.
I've dropped two dress sizes and am looking great. Wearing two sizes too big for 11 months does wonders come December. Good to hear you're enjoying the 5:2 diet, soon you'll be so slim you'll disappear! God willing. You'll reach your target.
I don't really have much more to say, so I've listed our gas meter readings to make the letter an acceptable length.
7519.10
000254
8532
Until next year x