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Imogen is planning games for her eighth birthday party. She has decided to amend the traditional game of ‘Pinning the tail on the donkey’ to ‘Pinning the nose on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Grandpa’s services were required to help with the poster-sized drawing onto which the noses were to be fixed. On a faint outline, with the help of the occasional suggestion from Louisa about the application of acrylic paint, Imogen produced Rudolph. She then added the finishing touches of grass and sun. Louisa cut out a red nose for each participating child and drew a target circle on the stag’s head.
This afternoon, the rest of us visited the Nottingham Christmas Fair, leaving Errol to watch the rugby match between England and Fiji. This should show how seriously I take my Grandparent duties.
We passed a rather good busker on our approach to the market place.
This was the last opportunity we had to move freely. I took one or two photographs before abandoning the idea to a focus on withstanding the tsunami wave of humanity that surged around us. We managed to buy a few presents, but, after a while Jackie and I took refuge on a cold steel bench while Louisa, Jessica, and Imogen wandered around some more. Behind us, a noisy rapper whose needle was stuck, made me wish he would change pitches with the man featured above.
On our return to Haywood Road, I was forced to try out the Rudolph game. The idea is to keep all noses on the board until the last blindfolded attempt has been completed, then see whose is the nearest to the target. An improvement on the current Blu-tack method will be required.
This evening we all dined at Chung’s Chinese restaurant in Mapperley. Louisa, Jackie, and I drank Tsingtao; Errol, Carlsberg; and the children, fruit juices. The food and service were excellent, and we were wisely persuaded to reduce our original order. There was still a fair bit left over.