Hello and welcome to my 2024 Christmas letter. I have so much to tell you! I guess we’d better take it month by month. I’ll start with January because that’s the first month that comes after New Year’s Eve. Okay, here goes.
JANUARY: An Italian friend came to stay just before Christmas in 2023. Let’s call him Roberto (pronounced ‘Rubber Toe’), though that’s not his real name. I managed to upset him. What? You, Richard? Yes, me. He was cooking something for dinner one evening and kept dipping in an unwashed spoon to sample how things were going. He took ages. Shelley had a few wines (vini) and headed off to bed. I told
I took him down south (on the ferry) then we returned to Wainuiomata (where the girls are smarter) and Shelley and I took him up north. He was disappointed that he couldn’t do the Tongariro crossing because the weather was bad. Not my fault because I can’t control the weather. We finished up in Rotorua. It was my intention to take him to the Waitomo caves. He decided to book a ticket for the caves online but failed. I said, “I can fix that for you.”
I got on my phone and quickly made a reservation for him. Then I made a real Kiwi male statement that guys in this country use when they are talking to their mates. I said, “See, Kiwis are smarter than Italians!”
He said that I was insulting him. He later told Shelley that I had insulted him twice (firstly with the meal, I think) and that he wanted to go straight back to Wellington airport so that he could take an earlier flight home. The next morning we drove, without conversation, all the way to Wainuiomata (where the girls are smarter) to pick up the rest of his gear, and then on to Wellington airport. It was actually an expensive experience for Shelley and I because we paid for all the accommodation and the ferry. Our intention was to try to show him as much of the country as we could fit into his time here. Result for January: FAIL.
February: I returned to work. I had been relieving at my old school but now had two days of violin teaching at two schools in Upper Hutt. Shelley was still working in a couple of Libraries.
March: The month named after a form of walking. Think about it. I mean, they could have just named this month ‘Walk Briskly’.
To finish off the month, my best friend Harrison turned one. He’s getting old!
April: Kevin and Betty finally got married, Ben moved to Australia and Margaret was promoted to manager at Briscoe’s. We have never met any of these people but, hey, it happened in April. Come on, some months need a bit of padding out.
Oops, I nearly forgot - Shelley retired, after 20 years of working in Wellington Libraries. Well done, Shelley!
May: “May I use your toilet?” May is a very polite month when people try to avoid use of the word ‘can’.
June: May and June are both women’s names. I sometimes wonder why there is no month called Tom or Graham.
July: George (son) got a bit older.
August: I got a bit older.
September: My daughter Steph got a bit older.
October: Okay, okay, I hear you, I’m being a bit short on detail. I think it was October when we heard that Harrison is going to have a brother! That’ll be two boys calling me Grandad! That’s pretty big news.
November: This seems to be the month when shops start selling Christmas stuff. I was in a mall in Lower Hutt near the end of the month and I spotted an old guy I know. He is nice enough, but he does take a lot of credit for the gifts that parents buy for their children. He evidently does deliveries. Near where he was they were playing a quite unusual song. I picked up these words…
“Rude Olf the read knows rain dear
Had a very shy knee knows.”
This reminded me of the sort of grammar you see on comments on Facebook.
I tried to sift out its meaning…
“Olf is a rude but well read guy who knows a lot about rain.
There was something quite ‘shy’ about his knee, but he does know things.”
Am I getting old? This makes little sense to me! Let’s move on to December.
December: At the time of writing we, my two flatmates and I, are only seven days into December. So, if you thought this month would get a big write up, I’m afraid that I may disappoint you.
I hope you’re all doing okay out there. If you’ve got an Italian staying over the Christmas period, good luck and avoid Kiwi male talk.
Enjoy your Christmas break.
Best wishes to you all.
4 commenti:
A French letter would be full of more interesting stuff.
That anonymous person was a bit rude.
As for me I was captivated by your outline of the past year.
Italians huh! I hope that you reminded him of who won the war. You should have told him that my dad probably shot a few of them from his tank when in the Divisional Cavalry in North Africa in WW2.
Not a lot happened between January and December at your household though but, maybe that's a good thing eh!
Perhaps you can regale, sorry, enlighten us on the rubbish bin situation in Wallace's Cove next year.
That Itie sounded like a touchie twat! You could have mentioned that this month is Advent, in the Church calendar, because it gets hot in summer.
Yes, there wasn't enough Christian religion detail in this Christmas letter.
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