A Family, Interrupted Part 1

So,

The day before the night before Christmas,

And all through the Reichstag*

Not a Brownshirt was stirring,

Not even The Biatch...**

But outside, Emily and I pull up in our reliable car, Ticker. The boot [translation: trunk] is filled with an assortment of Yuletide goodies and two HUGE sacks from Santa. The rain is falling, but I hardly notice because as I get out I look across the car park [trans.: parking lot] to see a minivan [trans.:minivan] with two excited-looking Guntons in it. I heft out the enormous Santa sacks and the bag full of snacks and start to head to the SS office.

I'm expecting that the foster carer is going to pin the kids in place until I'm safely within-doors, but against my expectations, the kids are unleashed and they instantly rush to catch up with me. They are obviously on a huge high, Rhiannon has a skip in her step and Caleb just cannot stop grinning. He tells me that he has a present for me, showing me it from where he had been hiding it behind his back. Rhiannon also has a Christmas present, but she is making no attempt to hide it and she's carrying it proudly. They also have Christmas cards and Caleb just cannot wait to give me his. I shoo them into the office, because the rain has started to get even heavier. No sign of the new social worker (not sure if she's a Brownshirt as of yet, withholding judgement until I've had more contact with her), so I sign in and as I'm doing that, I hear the carer say, "If you keep grinning like that, you'll tear your cheeks." I turn to see both kids grinning ear to ear and looking at me, so I sit opposite them and Caleb trots over and hands me his Christmas card. The envelope says 'Dad' in his inimitable handwriting and I delve into one of the Santa sacks to give him my card back. Rhiannon gives me her card, the envelope of which has careful joined-up writing, so I open Caleb's first. He's painted it bright blue and written 'Merry Christmas' right in the center. He's a lefty so, obviously, he's made his card right-side opening. Surprised me, I had to figure it out without the aid of a safety net. I get the card open and it says:

"Dear Dad

Merry

Christmas!

Love from

Caleb

XXX'

I thank him for the lovely card and open Rhiannon's card. She'd gummed the envelope shut, so I had to tear open the top. Her card has a lovely snowman drawn on the front and says 'Merry Christmas!' across the top. Inside, it says:

"Dear Dad

Merry christmas

Love

Rhiannon

XXX"

Yes, truly the sentiments of two children who supposedly fear their father...

I thank them both for the beautiful cards and tell them that they are the best cards I've had all year. The social worker arrives and we all traipse to the room we have booked. I ask to be allowed to play some Christmas tracks I've sync-ed to the iPhone (thank you again, Mumsy!) and I am allowed (so far, so good..). So to the dulcet, helium-enhanced tones of Alvin and the Chipmunks, we set about the serious business of Christmas present unwrapping. First out of the bag is Rhiannon's toy, a police station for some battery-powered guinea pig/hamster-things (I suppose they're more sanitary than the real animals) and Caleb gets.... SENTINEL PRIME!!! First shock of the day, the kids have seen the extremely violent third Transformers movie. I'm more than a little upset that Caleb dwelt upon a Transformer that 'turned people to skeletons'. A strong word to be had with the social worker regarding the appropriateness of what they are allowed to watch shall be had in the near future...

Next comes the arts-and-crafts things, Rhiannon's crochet set and Caleb's paint-a-birdbox set. Rhiannon is instantly enthralled by the idea of crochet-ing and I encourage her by saying that once she's done with all the yarn in the set, she can buy more and make other things. Caleb's looking at his birdbox box with his nose wrinkled in disgust. When I ask him what's up, he says "The painting on the pictures is horrible. I could do better."

With a smile, I told him, I bet he could and it'd be a lucky bird that would get to live in the box once he'd finished decorating it. Caleb liked that! Next came Rhiannon's crocheted bag and it's contents, a wallet and three sticks of lipbalm. The lipbalm is an instant hit, considering Rhiannon's habit of licking her lips and ending up with them chapped. She instantly applied a layer of 'Very Cherry' and smiled. Caleb opened a box to find his wallet, belt, watch/compass and pen set. This is all VERY cool, especially the watch, which he straps on immediately and starts figuring out which direction he is facing. Once he decides we are facing South-East, he opens his wallet to find three dollar bills, a nearly complete 'Royal Crest' set of British coins (all they need to find is the fifty-pence coin) and a whole £10. This, I tell him, is to buy his sister a special present. He smiles and nods. Something tells me he might have something in mind for her...

Rhiannon then opens her wallet and finds exactly the same as Caleb found in his. Lucky, lucky, lucky! She seems to know what she might like to get Caleb, but she doesn't give the game away. I called a pause at that point and pour out three cups of strawberry milkshake [trans.: strawberry milk] and then pull out the snacks and treats from the bag. There was: two boxes of Cracker Jacks, a pack of snowman Marshmallow Peeps, another pack of Christmas tree Marshmallow Peeps, three Twinkies, twelve candy canes and a bag of candy corns. Rhiannon is immediately drawn to the Twinkies and manages to get two thirds of one in her mouth in one bite. The om-nom-nom-ing told me that she was enjoying it immensely. That and the blissful, puffy-cheeked grin she gave me. Caleb was more circumspect, enthralled by SENTINEL PRIME!!!, so I had to encourage him to try something. In the end, a Peep Christmas tree was his first try and it lasted all of a couple of seconds before his eyes lit up and he was reaching for a second. The next thing to catch Rhiannon's eye was the Cracker Jacks. I asked, off-handed if they liked popcorn. Yeah! was the reply. Did they like peanuts? Yeah!! Do they like caramel? Yeah!!! Then they'll probably like Cracker Jacks. And as an added bonus, there's a prize in the box too. Rhiannon needed no further encouragement and dug into a box. I managed to get a few pieces of popcorn before she finished the rest. I think they were a hit.

Refueled with milkshake and candy, we dived into the seemingly bottomless sacks for more gifts. Rhiannon got a drinks bottle to match her wallet and Caleb got a huge great box. As Rhannon figured out how to open her bottle, Caleb demolished the wrapping on his present to descover, a Build-a-Bear! Named Timmy, he came with a soldier's camo suit, shiny boots, bear tags and a beret. He also had a £10 gift card to buy some new clothes. More arts-and-crafts things, Fimo modeling clay and Play-doh! Wouldn't it be a shame if that ended up smooshed all in the carer's carpets? >:D

Oh joy, Caleb's found out that not only does SENTINEL PRIME!!! declare his name loudly and proudly, but he also has a loud siren. That'll be a wonderful thing to hear early on a Sunday morning....

Rhiannon opens her next present, it's a bright and cheerful scarf and gloves! She instantly decides to put her gloves on, but wisely takes them off when she started on her Christmas tree Peeps. She also has a lovely book of classic stories and she gasps with delight at this. Caleb finds he has a cheeky monkey earmuff-hat and a Star Wars Lego book set. It's awesome! because he can make robots and spaceships and soldiers. Wearing his hat, he makes a face and asks, "Do I look silly?" I tell him, "No, the monkey is making the same face you do. He's winking."

Caleb take it off, looks at it then, with a grin, winks cheekily at me.

Now I get a chance to open my presents and I start with Caleb's. He's had a sourdough volcano-candle holder, painted to look like it's erupting and complete with red and yellow glitter 'lava' pouring down the side. I am very impressed with it and I tell him so. Caleb's grin is huge. Next I open Rhiannon's present and it's a pair of large framed photos of them both. To say they don't appear all that cheerful is an understatement. In Rhiannon's picture, she has the edges of a smile, but her expression is very neutral. Caleb's picture has him resting his head on his right hand and there is no sign of a smile. These are supposed to be children who are happy in their foster placement? Really? Could have fooled me.

Even the picture from their 'holiday' showed a very unenthusiastic pair of smiles. Four photos of them over a whole year. After the SS had agreed to provide me with pictures of 'significant events'.

As we opened presents, Caleb told me that he'd been in the school choir and had sung 'The Little Drummer Boy' which was playing on the iPhone. I asked him if he'd had fun doing that and he says he had. Rhiannon was quiet at this point, listening to the music while she played with SENTINEL PRIME!!!'s shield-gun-thing. I asked her if she was okay, and she nodded quietly, smiling at me. The smile got bigger when I told her that I loved them both and that I had had the best Christmas present ever, spending time with them together.

Finally our time together came to an end, the social worker telling us it was dead on twelve o'clock. To their credit, the kids were fantastic, helping me pack everything away into bags for them to take back to their house.

I don't know how to take this new social worker. She questioned me about the candies and treats from the States and I'd said Emily's mum (hi, Mom!) and sister (hi, Elizabeth!) had sent them and we'd decided to let the kids have some because we could not possibly get through it all by ourselves. She didn't raise any problems with the contact, even though her pen didn't seem to stop moving the whole time. I'll just have to wait and see the report in the New Year to see whether she's taken what the last Brownshirt said as Gospel and Verse or if sh's formed her own opinions of me. Who can say what miracles the New Year may bring?

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!!!

SENTINEL PRIME!!!

*SS office.

**So it don't rhyme, meh...

Boobs, Brews & Booths

The weekend started out well enough, sanely enough.  Mark and I drove up to Harrogate after my class on Friday afternoon but, as we needed a few, last minute items we didn't manage to leave Hull until sometime after four.  It was dark and there are lots of speed cameras on the A1079,  which is the main road through Hull.  I've only been driving on UK roads for about a month but, as one person said, if you can drive in Hull, you can drive anywhere... I've cut my british driving teeth driving in Hull so I figured I am good to go... I've even figured out their weird roundabouts... or so I thought.  We got lost, once, because I took the wrong exit off a roundabout.  But then, they're really confusing!  You come to a roundabout and they have two lanes and you have to get into different lanes depending on which exit you're going to take... after a while I managed to figure it out a bit.  We only got lost once.  Well, I took the wrong exit, so I suppose that's not exactly getting lost is it?  We eventually turned around, and returned to the roundabout where I took the correct exit.  According to the satnav, the trip should have taken about an hour and a half for a 70 mile journey.  About 6, I figured we were almost there and sure enough, we were approaching Harrogate.

There was one last roundabout before we got to Rudding Park, the lands where the hotel and golf course were on.  Mark was telling me to go straight through (second exit) while the road signs were saying to turn left (first exit).  I slowed down and we had a brief discussion over what we should do.  In the end he argued that his instructions said to go straight so I ignored the road signs and trusted the satnav.  It's dark and we're hungry so I was really, really hoping that the phone was correct.  It was.  A nice, big, sign welcomed us to what was probably once ancestral lands which is Rudding Park.  And then there was even a smaller sign saying Reception.  And this, my friends, is when we found out just how good good service could be.

After driving over the roundabout marker, which was, to be honest, not very clear in the dark, we pulled up to the front in the expectation that we'd register, they'd give us a map to our room, hand us our key and fare thee well.  No.  Service here was amazing.  Mark and I come in, all disheveled from the day and we get to the counter and the staff not only register us but they take our keys, park our car, bring in our luggage, carry our luggage to our room, open our door, set our stuff down and leave before we could even think of offering them a tip.  Wow.  We then unpack, what little we planned on doing and now we need to find the parental units as the Gunton males and the gents were getting together in the groom's lodge that had been reserved for him while the Gunton women and the ladies were getting together in the bridal suite.  After a bit of looking we find Uncle Phil who shows Dad, Mark and me to the Bridal suite where the other ladies are already.

 I then got to meet my future cousin-in-law and the lady of the weekend, Shaf.  The men eventually go off and do their things while we ladies make our way down to the restaurant for a bite to eat.  About this time I checked my phone and saw that I had a text from Mark: You are so lucky, I'm on a death march through the icy cold looking for a place that may or may not exist.  If I die before morning, I want you to know I love you...  I showed it to the other ladies who laughed at the humor and went awwwww at the end of the message.  Oh yeah, that's my guy, she said with a self-satisfied smirk.  Again, the staff was amazing.  The drinks were ordered, delivered and then our food was ordered and, after a while, the staff comes through the door and it's not just one person who is delivering our dinner-but several.  I had a steak with chips (read: steak fries) which were quite lovely once I added a bit of salt to them.  Sadly my Diet Coke eventually diminished and I was left wanting more.

After much more merriment and champagne for all, we toasted the bride, gabbed about the following day and then Mark texted me again telling me he was outside the girls' den.  I met him, brought him back to the ladies' sanctuary where he got compliments for his witty and romantic text.  After a little while we decided we were done for the night, bade the ladies good night and retired to our room for the rest of the night.  I do no have any pictures of the day because my phone was close to dying after being in constant use all day and the battery to the camera itself had died.

The following morning we went down to breakfast.

The rest of the Gunton clan came down a bit later.  Mark & I both had the Yorkshire breakfast which included eggs to order, black pudding, baked beans, fried tomato, field mushrooms, Yorkshire sausage, bacon and toast.

 I turned my nose up at the mushrooms and the pudding and Mark called me all sorts of unsavory names a gentleman does not call a lady.  Be quiet Gunton!  I am not afraid of it, I just refuse to eat blood is all.  To be honest, I didn't really like the eggs as they were way too... moist.  My mother and sister and Auntie know what I'm talking about.  Once we had finished our breakfast we joined the other Guntons and sat talking about this, that and another thing until everyone got up to either get ready or to run into town really fast.  Friends of Phil & Ann, Bill & Helen offered to take us into town as they were going to Sainsbury (store) to get a few things.  Turns out that Mark & I found cold Diet Coke and coffee, which we both needed.  There are no fridges in the hotel room so I was caffeine deprived.

Mark & I then returned to our room where we got ready for the wedding which was due to start at 1.  We decided we were going to be Victorian as modern just is not us.  I think Mark looked absolutely amazing in his clothing.  He really did look like quite the gentleman.  And I love my skirt!  A lot of people asked us if we had rented our clothes and no, we didn't.  We've been shopping around for months, trying to find what we wanted for the smallest price possible.  The beauty of it is that we'll be able to wear these for all sorts of occasions now.

Now then, a bit after one the wedding went underway.  One might think that, being American, our wedding traditions would be similar to British wedding ceremonies and while this is so in many ways, there are several differences that threw me for a loop.  The groomsman, like ours, were the ushers.  This was a formal wedding and while I expected the ushers to take my arm and lead us to our seats they instead asked us our side and we said groom and then were instructed to take a seat on the right though the first and second rows were reserved for family... we are family... we sat in the second row with Bill & Helen.  The ushers, once everyone had come into the room where the wedding was held, took seats in the front row instead of standing with the groom.  The only person with him was his best man.

Once the wedding party came in, the ring bearer came up to the best man, handed him the pillow then found a parent and stayed there.  Kids are so cute.  The bride came next and behind her were her ladies.  Like the groom, the only person who stayed up with her was her maid-of-honor.

At the front were two tables where a woman who was filling out the registry, which made the marriage in that place and that location legal and then the woman preforming the ceremony.  In the States you can get married anywhere, the thing that makes it legal is the person performing the ceremony.  In the UK, the ceremony site has to be registered as a marriage site or else the ceremony can't be legal.  They also have to legally ask if the bride and groom have come to the wedding of their own accord and if they know of any reason why they cannot be married.  When the officiant asked if there was anyone who knew of any reason why the two couldn't be married Del turned towards the guests and gave a very Gunton look of dire threat and warning.  Everyone who saw it laughed and then she repeated herself saying, ignore his look, if anyone knows why these two should not be married... and then Del turned to the guests again and gave the same angry glare as before.  The Gunton men definitely have a very wicked sense of humor.

Inevitably though, the vows were exchanged, which were much different than ours.  I believe they were traditional vows but not like ours.  They promised to love, honor and respect each other.  I think all the females started to cry.  When the officiant asked Del if he took Shaf he said I do real quick like.  When asking Shaf, she leaned back, wrinkled her brow and nose and went, mmmm.  I don't think Del was worried for a second even as she laughed and said, I do.  They had the entire room laughing during the entire ceremony.  And then it was over and we were kicked out for a very long cocktail hour as the staff turned the room over from the ceremony to the reception.  This is when we took pictures.

See how good my man looks?  This was taken in the library section of the manor house/hotel.  Eventually though we were led into the room again for the reception and it was quite blue.  The theme for the wedding was winter with blue and silver/gray being the colors.  It was really nice and it's obvious that a lot of thought was put into the favors which were at each place setting.  I have to admit that I like having the favors at the table instead of at a different table.  It seemed much more personal.

I was seated between Mark and his cousin Stuart, the brother of the groom.  Those two monsters had me cracking up.  Eventually the starters were served and I had chosen the tomato soup which was very much yummy.  After a while, the dishes were taken and another long wait saw the main meal.  The table save Stuart, had the beef which was a typical sunday roast of a slice of beef, Yorkshire pudding, potatoes and veggies.  That was then eventually followed with dessert and the cutting of the cake.

Then the night got really interesting and it became evident that people were quite drunk.  After dessert Mark and I returned to our room where I changed into something a bit more comfortable as the corset I had on was making it hard to do things easily, like use the ladies' room.  Diet Coke was not in attendance during the wedding but water was and, even though I had used the restroom in our room, nature once more called and I found it necessary to well, use the necessary.  Whilst there I was asked by a woman what was up with my boobs.  I explained that I was wearing a corset earlier and it really does do interesting things to the bust line and that I understood that people were talking about it and wondering.  Not many women wear corsets these days.  Then she wanted to know how big my boobs were.  She was, to put it nicely, a bit toasted.  Unconcerned I told her and she did not believe me as she was sure mine were bigger than hers and she had hers made into Fs.  Sorry darling, mine are what God gave me.  She was not satisified with my answer but she and a friend eventually left and I remained to redo my hair, apply a bit more color to my lips and straighten my shawl.

It was also at this time that I learned that I was the envy of every single woman who was able to see Mark push in my chair each and every time there was a need for me to rise and sit again.  Every time without fail.  He was quite gentlemanly and every single lady who saw that sighed and wished that her man would do the same for her.  hehehehe... suckas.  I saw him first so he's mine.

Upon leaving I hear her call my name and it was my newly made boob friend and she had been regaling some of the ushers about our bra discussion.  From the looks on their pained faces they had learned a bit more about her bra size, my bra size and bra sizes in general.  Apparently she still could not believe that though I looked bigger, hers were.  What can I say?  Someone had tried to explain that the larger the chest size, the cup size goes down by one... she still wasn't buying it.  She left me alone with the men, I laughed and bade them good night, told Mark about it and he rolled his eyes and asked if there was anyone he needed to kill.

I foolishly thought that that was the end of the boob discussion.

If you have recently been to a wedding chances are there was a photobooth where the drunk and disorderly can go in, take pictures of themselves and have a keepsake of their night that will, in the guest book, live on.  My boob friend had, indeed, with a friend taken pictures of her boobs.  Apparently she really wanted to judge the differences in sizes.  Mark and I were in line waiting for our turn when she, even more drunk than before, began the discussion again.  Leaning over, she says to me, without touching, I can't believe you're only a DD, you have to be bigger than me, have you ever been tested?  Upon a negative answer, she told me I had to go to H&M ( a clothing store) and get tested.  She wanted to know how I knew I was the size I was.  Fairly simple really, a D is too small and a DD fits perfectly.  It's not rocket science.  This was not acceptable.  She was sure I am wearing the wrong size.  Then I looked at her, shrugged my shoulders and said, well... I'm coming from American sizes, not British.  She stopped, looked at me and went.  Oh.

There really is no difference between American and British bra sizes.  Almost none.  I don't think she knew that as she finally dropped it.  So let this be a lesson to you folks.  Be careful how much you drink or else the entire wedding guest list will know that you are comparing your bra size to someone who was, until a few hours ago, a complete stranger.

Sunday morning, while the Gunton clan was getting their shoot together, the bra friend walks through the reception with her husband (?) and says, Hi Emily!  I said hello back.  Mark then explains to family members that she was the bra woman.

It was, however, a good time and I had a lovely time and I am so very glad I went.  But as it is now quite late and I need my beauty sleep, I shall bid thee all a good night.

Until the next time-