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The Watson-Laird Gazette 2013
'Better never than late!'
Martin and Alice to Split? Rumours abound, strongly denied, but more of that later.
Well, here we are again. Well! What a year it's been, eh! Alice? (Don't we always start the letter like that?)
As usual, Martin writes most of the Watson-Laird Gazette, then Alice edits out the bits that she thinks are risqué, smutty or politically incorrect, and also changes double entendres to single entendres. So the Nativity Scene joke and Advent Calendar cartoon are both out, unless Martin has sneaked in the ’sophisticated humour’ insert, as he pretentiously calls it, ‘for the more mature audience‘. Hopefully by the final Christmas wishes, there won’t be anyone we won’t have upset, even if it’s just because you splurted your drink over your screen or shoes. It’s that sort of Christmas letter. We also recommend that you search www.BBC.CO.UK for ‘10 common Christmas card dilemmas’, including this extract from the section on annual letters,
“…Round robins are hopeless because either you know the people so well, you're already familiar with their year, or else you don't know them well enough to care. The latter group find boasting particularly galling. Who wants to know about the exam successes of a teenager whose father you met in Derby 24 years ago? But in an age where receiving a letter is a rarity, could the round robin be due for a renaissance? It might now be a case of take what you can get. Perhaps people should be grateful that they are being written to at all. It's time to bear the annual show of smugness."
Well, at least ours is the biggestest and bestest and braggiest!
We were very flattered to hear that one former neighbour has recently moved back to Teddington, so that he could once again be in the Watson-Laird Gazette distribution area.
Martin and Alice to Split? The rumours are rife, but the more observant amongst you will have noticed the capital S for Split, making you remember that we went to the delightful Croatian coast for our summer holiday. We're as happy today as ever. Split was the nearest large city, not a domestic rift. Next year we are considering a holiday in Separation, Wyoming, so we can do a similar scaremongering joke in next Christmas’s W-LG.
Here's Alice and her millstone, in Croatia.
We were staying in a small 4-star hotel (Alice says it was ****, but she‘ll probably edit that bit) about 4 miles SE of Split. Our room looked out over the coast just a few yards away, or ‘metres’ as they are called locally, across a bay and on to distant hills. We climbed the local precarious hillsides and often walked for hours without seeing anyone, but Alice can’t help her map reading. You probably know how to use Google by now so read about Omis, Trogir, Brac and Krka and other quaintly-spelled local attractions. I was tempted to add a few made-up ones there too! Perhaps I did...
Alice’s career continues its climb, passing Martin’s, on the way down. Martin even got barred from the Job Centre for excessive smugness. Following even more redundancies from the British Transport Police this year, including the manager who recruited Martin, there aren’t many left there at all who he knew. Keep your possessions with you at all times while travelling by train! Martin isn’t there to watch you getting mugged on CCTV anymore.
Here's Alice's millstone again, in Croatia.
And here we are, ready to brag with the annual events round up.
We kicked off the year with a visit to Kew Gardens, and then Alice survived her annual attempt at flailing around on thin ice, at the annual skating event at Hampton Court Palace.
February saw us returning to Kew for the annual orchid festival, although Martin had misunderstood and thought it was to be an orchard festival. Alice celebrated her birthday by dragging us both to the top of The Monument, an old tower in the City of London that they used for watching the Great Fire of London. We then went on a full tour of St Paul’s Cathedral, including the basement, which Martin enjoyed, but Alice thought it was crypt.
In March we visited Brompton Cemetery, and while we were exploring among the old headstones we found the grave of Sir Charles, the grandfather of Sir Frederick Freake, the 1908 Olympic polo player who once owned the land on which our house was built.
In April we spent a long weekend with Alice’s parents, to welcome her father home after another session draining the NHS resources in Guildford Hospital. It was good to have time to explore the surrounding area rather than just mooch off Alice’s mother’s hospitality!
In following weeks we explored such world famous sights as Gunnersbury Triangle Nature Reserve, Crane Park, Kew Palace, Imber Court, Canizarro Park and Bedfont Lakes. Alice’s mother visited Israel, and managed to avoid contributing, as far as we know to any further political unrest in the area.
June saw us doing something we’d never done before, expressing our political views by taking to the harsh battleground of the streets of London, when we joined the Family Day March to oppose the planned Badger Cull. We met Brian May, the organizer, who used to play guitar for the Queen on the roof of Buckingham Palace. It was a fantastic and moving day, with many thousands of marchers, despite being reported as ‘a few hundred’. You’ll find pictures on the web site, http://www.martinhwatson.co.uk/what_we_ve_been_up_to.html. Don’t click on that if you are reading the copy of the W-LG that came with the Christmas card. It won’t work... Multi-media Christmas letters are soooo pretentious, after all. The gaps are all under_scores.
In August we thought we’d try and meet posh people by going for a short holiday in Royal Tunbridge Wells, in Kent. I don’t know if it’s the way we come across to other people, but one evening we went into a carefully-selected pub for evening dinner and local beer, and put a bag down on the table, only for the landlord to come and check that we hadn’t brought our own food in, in it! He didn’t even apologise, so do try and avoid The Compasses in Royal Tunbridge Wells.
We had long walks exploring the town and nearby villages, looked after by a lovely lady who unfortunately was just about to retire from the B&B business.
(This next section is the part where people normally talk about the amazing successes of their multi-talented offspring.) We have a reasonably agile squirrel that visits the garden if he's desperate for a paltry nut. We’ll quickly move on…
We've had regular visits to the local theatre, including, just last week, the annual pantomime Snow White. The seven dwarves were very cleverly presented. Actors stood behind an eighteen-inch-high wall with shoes sticking out of their knees. As with all pantomimes, all of the sweets thrown from the stage, and some of the jokes, went straight over the heads of the younger, more innocent members of the audience. In fact, only last night Alice said something which made Martin realise he hadn't got a particularly clever, slightly smutty pun! For copyright reasons, we can't humiliate Martin by repeating it here. Alice would have edited it anyway.
Just before the end of Page Three, here's the annual PT Bird, this year it's a Scotch Woodcock. We selected Jackie the 'Cock this year because Alice's nephew, Chris, has a gap year job writing software for tracking woodcock. His interests include writing 'game' software so this interlude seems quite appropriate...
For the less sophisticated of you, Scotch woodcock is a savoury dish consisting of creamy, softly-scrambled eggs served over toast then topped with anchovies. More of the latter later.
We'd like to make a special mention of long-time friends (ours and each others') and long-time sweethearts (just each others') Alan and Hilary, who finally remarried, fortunately to each other this time!
And also to Jim and Kristin who have cemented that special Anglo-American relationship. We think Obamacare is involved.
Social event of the year was the celebration of the Golden Wedding Anniversary of Michael and Katherine, Alice's parents. Surrounded by dozens of their friends and family, they wined and dined in style in a hotel near their home.
The high point of the whole year was getting a new patch of tarmac in the road outside. (That was specially for all you bathos lovers.) Neither of us passed any exams, achieved fame or notoriety, trained any clever animals, nor appeared on Britain's Jungle Celebrity X-Factor Talented Dancing from Essex. Our planned harvest of Dwarf Pepppers failed to produce fruit. We got new soffits. (Some people brag about getting a new sofa...)
Following on from last year’s mosaic cow, Alice’s latest craft venture is a displaying peacock, but currently it looks more like a quattro stagioni pizza, with something added that might be anchovies(!), but Martin hasn’t had the heart to tell her yet. It’ll come good. We were hoping Chas the Peacock was going to be featured here this year but he's not quite dressed. Get on with it, Alice!! Oh, he's coming anyway, but he's been relegated to the back page because he isn't a proper Page Three Bird, but we know one of our readers would be disappointed without a proper PTB. Let's hear it now for...
Chas the Incomplete Peacock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On the subject of round robins (watch how carefully we glide from one topic several pages back to the next here...) we attend a local Bird-Watching Group each moth, (did you notice that gliiiiide?) and Alice is helping compile next year's 60th anniversary memories book. We've had other birding (NOT twitching) activities too.
By way of a puzzle this year, here is something (!?!?!?) Martin designed for a t-shirt. Spend Christmas working out the significance of the six horizontal words and their meaning. Answers on millstones, please, to Alice.
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