On advent calendars.

Your Mother always made sure you and your Brother had an advent calendar.
It was, inevitably, religiously themed. Extracts from the Christmas story part of the bible with page numbers.
In buying it she was also, inevitably, contributing towards some worthy cause. And, also inevitably, it couldn’t have got much more ethnic if it were hand-woven by indigenous mountain [...]

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On decking the halls.

Last year you spent the whole of November virtuously not thinking about Christmas. Sidling past the tinsel, the seasonal food aisles, the oversized Santas, the holly themed car and leg waxing sets and the jolly reindeer socks in shops, averting your eyes when the really jingly adverts came on TV, stuffing your fingers in your ears to protect yourself [...]

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On watching your language.

The Star likes music, especially when people are singing.
Unfortunately, you suffer from a complete disinterest in the lyrics of songs.
So although you’d like to entertain the Star by warbling along with the radio, you have been forced to find a station which has more of an emphasis on instrumentals than on words. Classic rock stations [...]

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On having your cake and eating it.

With the Star’s first birthday beginning to hover on the horizon, you realised recently that the mantle of making interesting themed birthday cakes was about to pass to you.
You have fond memories of your Mother’s efforts. Particularly the one with lurid green peppermint flavoured icing.
So you decided to use B’s birthday as an opportunity to [...]

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On Merry New Year (Orthodox) Christmas.

It’s the 7th January.
If anyone wonders why you don’t, as a rule, get that Christmas tree up until the last possible moment before (British) Christmas, then the fact that in the Solnushka household you are still deep in the holiday season should be reason enough. The midwinter blowout won’t be over until Old New Year [...]

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On sticky backed plastic.

So it turns out that what made the Star laugh yesterday was Sellotape.
Your menfolk were innocently wrapping a birthday present for your Mother, and had just ripped their first bit of Sellotape when the Star burst into loud laughter which, apparently, went on and on.
Slightly stunned, they waited until he stopped and tried the Sellotape again.
The [...]

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On guerilla war.

Apparently your husband and your brother got the Star laughing today.
While you were out at work.
They won’t tell you how they did it.
And the trainees didn’t give you any flowers, even though it was the last day of the course.
It must be a Thursday.

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On щи.

Today you spent fifteen whole minutes letting the Star push the door shut and then grasp the door handle to pull it open again.
Now there’s a game that doesn’t seem to get old.
Neither does Babushka playing with the light switch for his enjoyment. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. [...]

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On the herons, a goldfish, your cat, his Grandad and the Neighbour.

One of the walks you frequently take the Star on is for a quick trot along the nearby River.
About halfway along your route is a big wooden structure which was clearly from the days when the area was a hive of warehouse and shipping activity and which for ages you thought must have some interesting [...]

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On Bara Brith.

Sometime after you Grandma died, you took it into your head to make Bara Brith.
Now your Grandma wasn’t Welsh.
She didn’t even live in Wales.
She lived, in fact, about 100 metres from the Welsh border.
But her Bara Brith wasn’t an heirloom recipe or anything. She only moved into the borderlands about 25 years before she died.
It was [...]

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