christmas 2013

Christmas at 20 Hillside ... my parents in their living room;

my father posing with a glass of champagne;

my mother extremely happy to find that my father has taken the trouble not just to buy her a new wooden spoon, but to saw and smooth down the handle so that it's usefully short;

and my father opening a present from the neighbors - rather clearly marked "FRAGILE - Please Keep This Way Up" - upside down.

Somehow, this all manages to look like a series of stills from a particularly British TV comedy show ... the appealing-to-the-upper-middle-class kind that doesn't have people whooping and falling flat on their backs when wearing paper hats.  Comedy almost always has some base in reality, or maybe it's the other way round.  We have retreated to our hotel room (early morning image follows below) to drink from the thoughtfully provided flask of sweet sherry - thus almost certainly falling headlong into another comedy stereotype.