Thursday 21st February

….and there we were, with the male writers in the family thinking (that with zero “comments” about the new blog) that nobody reads the pearls of wisdom dropping from their fingers on to the keypad every evening….how wonderfully rewarding to have such a resounding endorsement of ones efforts. 

Dear Anonymous… the cheque is in the post….indeed, there must be some very sad people out there if they actually look forward to hearing about the daily escapades of a dysfunctional St. Martins family.

We started the day with a wonderful clip on the news about someone who has trained an otter to play basketball. The dear little creature swims up it’s pond and jumps up in the water to “dunk” the small ball it is carrying into a hoop that it’s owner has strapped to the side of the pond…..she who is responsible for training our dog was almost beside herself….”why, if an otter can play basketball, can’t I get Jessie to walk to heel”….we males suspect that there isn’t enough food involved….everyone knows that (when it comes to dogs) “doggy treats” bribery will (usually) get you anywhere……… as opposed to men of course….someone quite rightly reminded us that, if you think the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, you’re probably aiming about 10 inches too high…

Conversations around the table are now becoming dominated by “calories”….how many? How often? etc. etc.  and there’s been a few interesting discoveries….not least one involving the senior male who should be using weight. As we all know, he has French lessons from 8 until 9:30 every Tuesday morning….yesterday he told us that he had bumped into a particular person in the bakery on the way to “French”….what are you doing in a bakery at 07:45 was the immediate question?????.....it turns out that, as a Christmas treat, their French tutor had brought in croissants…..and now they feel that they need to keep the tradition going….. to make matters worse, the old man has a “pain au chocolat”!!!...... and the damage ?  “big chocolate croissant = 400+ calories”……if Dad was on a 5/2 diet (according to him there’s absolutely no chance) then that chocy croissant would be two thirds of his TOTAL intake on his fasting day……you can imagine the language.

Anyone who thought the debate had finished on the issue of Electoral Reform would have been sadly mistaken if they had been in our kitchen this evening…..oh boy do we know how to have a “politically correct” conversation…one of us in particular wondered why the Luce family couldn’t have been left in charge of deciding the wording for the referendum…..the mind boggles! Much discussion about supporting the Constables (we all want to) but also about the super constituencies…..or stupid constituencies as they are known up here……we’re not happy about having “outsiders” to represent us here in Rozel…..

The Fireman didn’t get to drive his big fire engine today (maybe tomorrow)….but Tom did get to drive the digger……he spent hours fitting the new part….got it running eventually (boy has it been cold outside today!)…moved it around to a point where he was going to try to dig out some old tree stumps…..and promptly ran out of diesel!!   He who has purchased said digger was not amused…..the engineer had been told specifically that the machine needed a good “check over” before being pressed into action….apparently looking at the fuel level doesn’t count as part of that!!

Snow on the forecast….half of us are panicking about being able to get to work at the week end…..the other half are panicking to make sure the oldest 4x4 in the yard has plenty of fuel in so it can be used to “go out and have a bit of fun sliding around”….never a dull moment up here…