Gold

David's Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award badge arrived today. The result of nearly 4 years' effort. Mum (I think parents should get an award too) was keen to go to the ceremony at St James' Palace but David was less keen, hence the slightly less formal approach - opening an envelope, grunting and leaving it lying around on the coffee table.

Before you click on it, can you guess which gold song this will be?  

Also today, he was discharged from the orthodontist after 3 years. 

So last night we were sitting comfortably in the lounge sipping sherry and eating Matchmakers when we heard the lovely sound of crunching metal as David reversed my car into John's on the drive. 

It's all happening for that young man at the moment. 

And I shall leave you with another Coombes household story. I popped out earlier and the dog was whinging so Sarah kindly decided to feed her. Sardines. I got home to a very happy dog but the house had the aroma of Billingsgate fish market. There was sardine juice everywhere, including all over Sarah. I told her to put her jumper straight in the washing machine; after a few moments staring at the white goods she said "ermm, which one's the washing machine?"

Parenting is a never ending mishmash of pride, shame, embarrassment, joy, maniacal laughter, failure, success and bewilderment. No better job!

No idea if I shall get time to Blip tomorrow, so just in case I don't, I hope you have exactly the sort of Christmas you wish for, and that nobody gets you hankies. 

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