December already

We will decorate our tree today, though I can't believe Christmas will really come this year, and can't predict what it will be like. Just after Christmas is the annual weeklong Quaker Summer Gathering, which is to be held just a half hour north of here. Joseph and I have been on the organizing committee, though me just nominally the last six months. Joseph is representative of/to Young Friends; he can go on his own, supposedly, and bunks with the YF's this year for the first time. If I can't go, Emily will go with her local honorary grandmothers, Joy Rising and Mary Rose.

Joseph has started a volunteer job, three afternoons a week, helping sort, clean, and move things around at the Hospice Shops (second-hand stuff to support Hospice). He seemed happy with this after the first day, though it was hot, since he has chosen to work in the afternoons...they close down, like 3/4 of New Zealand, between December 21 and January 10.

Emily had her school "Panto" this week--this is apparently a British tradition--the Christmas Pantomime. As she has been rehearsing and talking about this over the last few months, I have been puzzling, becuase it clearly didn't seem to be what I would think of as a pantomime...she kept singing the songs, and talking about character's lines...it was finally clarified for me by a British friend at our Thanksgiving dinner. It is an audience participation kind of play, which traditionally includes lots of booing the villians and cheering the heroes, actors playing the opposite gender, songs, and apparently always one character who actually is a mime. Emily was a cat and a cheerleader in this one, which was a version of Dick Whittington, in which he comes to Southwell school...They did a good job. I tried to take a few pictures with my iphone but they did not come out well...Emily now just has 3 1/2 days left of school.

Manford has been struggling with a urinary tract infection, and more weakness; he is tired of it all and discouraged. He did get up and join us for Thanksgiving for a few minutes, and talked with his sister Joan on the phone well that day. He appreciates your thoughts and prayers.