Packing 13.02.08

Sam is preparing for a ski trip to Austria, or to be more accurate I am busy getting everything ready for his trip. Sam took me to town on Saturday and bought several UMD's for his PSP (they are like mini DVD's) he then dragged me off to another shop and prevailed upon me to purchase a PSP game to keep him occupied on the long journey to Austria (24hrs). It seems that was his sole contribution to packing. He has asked me several times if I have packed yet, he has even been fairly specific about the food he wants to take with him, but the packing is my job. At least if I do it he should end up with suitable clothing and hopefully he will have everything he needs.

The trip was expensive and when you add on the cost of ski clothes, money for meals, pocket money and all the other bits and bobs he needs it proves very expensive indeed, so I hope he makes the most of it. I am not sure how he will take to skis, he is not the most co-ordinated man in the world, but maybe he will surprise me. There again, he may come home with a few 'war wounds' who knows. It will be very odd without him next week.

Happy Birthday 21.12.07

Thursday started horribly early, Robbie wanted to make an early start and Sam wanted me and the girls to be ready by 6.30am so that we could watch him open his birthday presents. We obliged, but Sam was the only person who was full of life at that time of day. He is going skiing in February so I bought him some ski wear, the outer layer met with his approval, but when he opened a box containing the base layer he suddenly became very embarrassed and he tucked them out of sight very quickly. Later in the day he gave me a stern telling off for embarrassing him, it is most odd that 13 year olds can be such prudes about perfectly ordinary things yes they find toilet humour absolutely hilarious. I asked Sam what his favourite presents were, I wasn't surprised to hear that he thought his new PSP was great, but his other favourite was more surprising, it was a book that he had asked for - The Canterbury Tales. Sam is not a keen reader of fiction at the best of times and even bookworms find Chaucer challenging so I assumed it must be a passing whim when Sam asked for the book for his birthday. I got the modern English version, but I had a quick look at it and it still required quite an effort, but I caught Sam with his nose in the book several times yesterday. I think he had a really good birthday, but as you will see from the picture he wasn't too keen to pose for photos.