Middle-aged lady in bookshop (Shurely not me?) gushes encouragingly: 'Look at this lovely Christmas book ...'
Nobody looks at the lovely Christmas book. If she is being honest, lady privately admits that she wouldn't have thought much of it c1965 and probably would have preferred a Bunty annual.
We came away with a rather more enticing volume about turning your brother into a zombie slave.
And the really cool one about the 14yo spy being shot at by international terrorists. I think a shark came into it, too, but that may have been the next one in the series. ('This is a really, really rare book. It's not in the library.')
Anyway, I don't think I'd want to be friends with the kind of boy who reads lovely Christmas books. And a zombie slave might be useful to have round the house.
Having been born to Welsh parents, I spent a lot of time being a child in Wales at Christmas. It was never a happy time; my parents were poor people but my Mother made sure that we had four meals a day - breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. The first and last were cereals but I was never that hungry.
ReplyDeleteI like the writings of Dylan Thomas - such a shame that he died too soon.
I read a few pages while I was waiting, Toffeeapple, and it was lovely - but you can't do nostalgia when you're nine! I was watching the Back in Time Christmas programme last night which brought back memories of paper chains etc No mention of mother trying to thaw the 1960s deep-frozen turkey in front of the fire - it's a wonder we didn't all have salmonella poisoning by Boxing Day. I had completely forgotten the chocolate smoking kit - my brother usually got one in his stocking. I can't get too het up about it because not one of us has ever smoked.
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