Gold rings?

I didn't mention it yesterday because I didn't want to encourage it. I hoped that if I ignored it, it might go away. But I suppose that I'd better admit that yesterday - we woke up to snow. Look at that nasty white stuff in the garden.

We're all hoping that this isn't the start of a winter like the last one, when it snowed at the end of November and we weren't free of it till mid-January. So far, there isn't much of it but we're a bit anxious. We live at the bottom of a little dead-end road, downhill, and the street up at the entrance to ours is also on quite a steep hill. Neither street is ever cleared by the council since it's a quiet, residential area. Last year, Mr Life and I could at least get places by walking but this year, we have to be able to ferry my mum around or she's stuck in the house. Though in fact she's fairly stuck anyway since her digestion is still very ... well, I won't go into details. She needs to be near a loo, anyway. Sigh.

Today's present was five chocolate coins each. Note the past tense.

Now, if you've been paying attention you'll have been expecting penguin number 5. Ha! Fooled you - an iceberg instead, today.

Thinking about how I used to produce little gifts for the children every day during Advent (not such good ones as these, I'd have to admit), led me on to smiling at how the roles in a family change over the years. Nowadays, when I'm with the offspring they occasionally treat me (in the nicest possible way) like an old lady. This is perfectly justified in the context of technology, of course. I can work a computer (see, here I am doing it) but I wouldn't claim to be good in a technological crisis. But, for example, Daughter 2 tends to take my arm when we're crossing the road, I sometimes notice Son speaking slowly and clearly when addressing me and I'm relying on Daughter 1's advice if I ever clear my brain and time enough to consider doing any patchwork.

When I'm with my mother I'm the young, fit person who leaps up to fetch things, carries stuff in from the car and can occasionally make the television work. When I'm with the kids I sometimes feel like a silly old duffer.

With the cats, though, my function is as it's always been. I'm one of the staff.