Ancient tome

Maybe their mum has been having a bit of a declutter but, out of the blue, Charlie and Hannah brought this with them, yesterday. It's a Christmas present from 1990, a cook book given to me by my (then) new mother-in-law, Gerti. As the girls pointed out, it's older than them! I guess I last saw it twenty years ago.

I always got on with my first set of parents-in-law. They were smart, witty, and interesting, as well as being a little bit off-kilter, and I've missed them ever since my first wife and I divorced. But it's interesting to how bits of their characters manifest in my twentieth century babies.

For example, this evening, I set about taking the decorations off the Christmas tree. In theory, this would have been a fairly desultory occasion but Milly had finished work early and came to help me. She suggested we put on a Christmas album* and somehow managed to make the whole event quite Christmassy. That is something that totally comes from her mother and grandmother.

Incidentally, just out of focus, you can see three of my Christmas presents: 'Filmish' by Edward Ross, which Dom gave me; the 'Chasing The Moon' DVD from Hugo; and Rob Young's 'Electric Eden' from the Minx. All lovely, thoughtful presents :-)

*I buy a Christmas album pretty much every year and it was with some trepidation that, this year, I bought the new (2017) release of Elvis's 'Christmas Album', augmented by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It could have been dreadful but, actually, it improves the original. I can't recommend it enough. 

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Reading: 'Plan For Chaos' by John Wyndham.