The debonair Basil Marigold's

 It was Saturday when I started looking for our children's Mother's day card. I had been on point this year and bought all the cards a couple of weeks earlier, as I needed three. Two for Mother's day and a birthday card.  I had them all filled out and ready for despatch in my bureau. As I had multiple cards and another item for my mum I waited until the week before to gather them and pop them into a larger padded envelope. I then got my wife to take them to the post office to post. Job done. Brownie points to me, huzzah. And then on the day before as I went to get my wife's card it had disappeared from my bureau! It had completely evaporated.  Of course I did... This year my mum got two Mother's day cards. One from her son, and the other from her Grandchildren.  Still, every cloud. I can now pick the card back up from my mum and re-use it next year!

After what has seemed 16 and a half years the children have returned back to school. A somewhat staggered start for the two as one is in Primary and the other, Secondary. The return to secondary school has been a little later and has involved more hoops to jump through. However, we have managed to disperse them out and back into the world of education. How safe that world is, well, we just don't quite know. There are so many competing arguments that at the end of the day we can only do what we can.  And so, one returns with excitement in their mind. The other, a little less so. He has thoroughly enjoyed his time in homeschool. I think he has overly enjoyed the company of both parents and to be more honest, the company of having his transformers toys nearer to hand than he will do at his school desk! We are therefore now at the stage where we await what happens in the future and what, if anything, occurs.

 One of the children's presents this year required some effort! It also took a while to get to the bottom of it (you'll get the joke later!) It involved safety glasses and digging tools. Teeny-tiny digging tools. Before you stands the remains of Atlantis, no less!! As you can see, and much like Pompeii it was covered in Volcanic ash when it was destroyed. The drawback of this is that the material is now hardened and does require some effort to crack through the surface. As you can see there is certainly a temple in the landscape.  Both children approached it with gusto!! and after a good hour or so they had managed to extract all the hidden gems and artefacts hidden within the archaeological site. As you can see below a good haul was found and we have declared it treasure to the relevant authorities! We uncovered gem stones, an ancient Atlantan coin and a helmet to match. We even uncovered Poseidon's trident. We have yet to try and summon up a great island destroying wave. ...

  It is almost the end of 2020. By any metric devised it has been somewhat of a spectacular, and remarkable year. At the end of 2019 people assumed that 2020 could not be more of a mess than the preceding one. Turned out that this could happen. I haven't experienced a year like the one we have lived through. And, in fairness, that is an important point, we have got through it and hopefully we'll come out the other side by the end of the next year. There appear to be now easy or quick fixtures to the Covid pandemic. We must remember the 70,000 who didn't make it through with us. For context that is almost two of our hometowns passing away.  This has not been an event that you had the chance to watch from outside, every was involved. Some followed the rules and some, rather famously, decided that their position allowed them to not follow the rules. An interesting year for the current political philosophy of 'Do as I say, not as I do.' Too much of this is infiltrating ...

For many years now we have been storing firewood in our house. As you can see from the photograph below the poor chair begged for the cleansing power of a state of burning.  Grim, and unappealing it has sat displaying its ugliness to every room it has been in. The depressing covers and pattern having seen better days at the height of the Suez Crisis. However, my wife has a strange love of the chair and so for a bit of a treat it was decided that maybe fire wasn't the only recourse. Might it not be saved and loved again, as new! And so, after a few weeks of sweet parting the sad pile of firewood returns to the bosom of its family and boy, has it had a great new face lift! Ta-da Clearly unrecognisable! The once hidden wings, have been allowed out to fly again! Therefore the matches and the petrol have been put back!

We recently had to replace the toilet seat. I bought one on amazon and as with most manufactured product it was flown directly from the orient. As with these things they come with a plethora of instructions. I do not expect the instruction sheet for a toilet to be overly arduous. However, there were a few oddities that I struggled to entirely get to grips with. Clearly it is important to have a neat toilet seat. My main worry here is over the taste of the surface. I am not one to encourage the licking of toilet seats to ascertain the flavour of the seat. My children have so far refused this experiment.  One of the reasons the children have refused to lick the toilet seat is clearly demonstrated in a further section about safety. Children should not be allowed to play with the toilet seat. This can result in hurting fingers, and 'other' accident. I do not know what the other accident might be but if you look close enough to the tiny child who is not to scale does utter the words...

 For many years now we have had a tiny mirror that we bought with us when we moved. We put it up in the hallway of our new house. The hallway swamped it, and I was the only one who could see in it, because that was were the hook went. We have been in the house for nearly two years. I found myself in B&Q this week. I have been on annual leave and we have been doing some DIY. Before I went I mentioned to my wife that I'll have a look at mirrors while I remember! And I did remember! There wasn't a huge selection available in all fairness and after I thought long and hard I found one which seemed really good.  Here, therefore is the start and the finish. I can now safely say that my entire can fit within the mirror. Indeed, according to my wife, most of the street would fit in! And I quote my wife here with the following quote, 'Do you think we would have bought a mirror that big if I had been with you?' hahahahaha Here is the old mirror sat underneath the new hallway m...