Jean Ure

The Flower Power Collection


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Hi, Katie,

      I know it’s not my turn to write but I wanted to tell you about my ace weekend with my nan and granddad.

       Nan had a birthday cake with SIXTY CANDLES on it. Truly! She counted them. It was a VERY BIG cake! It took her several goes to blow out all the candles. In the end we had to help her!

       What made it such fun was that all the family came and we played games. All the family is: aunties and uncles (two of each); my great aunt (Nan’s sister); my cousins (Six in all).

       Two of my cousins are boys, but they are quite nice. This is because they are still little!!! One of them is Seven and the other is five. They have not yet had time to grow horrible… Of my four girl cousins my favourite is Stephanie as she is like us and hates fox hunting. Stephanie is twelve. You would get on with her!

      The games that we played were:

      Miming

      2O Questions

      Charades

      How does it resemble me?

       This last was particularly funny! How it is played is that one person has to go out of the room and all the rest think of an object. The person then comes back and goes round in a circle asking “How does it resemble me?” and trying to guess what it is. It was SO hilarious! When my nan went out of the room the object chosen was: a flower pot. Well, she came back and started to ask questions, and when she got to my granddad and said, “How does it resemble me?” you will never guess what he replied! Very solemnly he said, “It has a hole in its bottom.” Nan looked quite shocked for a moment so that I felt sure she was going to tell him off for being rude, but in the end she couldn’t help laughing, and so then we all did.

       Charades was also fun. In case you don’t know it, this is where you divide into teams and each team chooses a word and breaks it down into syllables. You then act out each syllable and people have to work out what the word is.

       I was in a team with Stephanie, Uncle Dave, my dad and my great aunt Annie. Our word was AEROBICS. (Air-o-bix.) When we did the first syllable Aunt Annie pretended to be an opera singer (Singing an AIR). She dressed up in a big lacy tablecloth and put a lamp-shade on her head! She is a very dignified sort – She is a head teacher!!! – and it was just hilarious. I couldn’t help wondering what the children at her school would think if they could see her!

       It was a really great weekend. Even Lily enjoyed it, though she was moaning like crazy on the way there as she didn’t want to leave her friend Francine and miss out on riding a pony called Cobbie in a gymkhana.

       What sort of things do you do when you go and visit your nan? Where does your nan live? Mine lives in St Alban’s, which is not so very far away.

       Tomorrow we go back to school. WOE. I don’t really mind though it would be far more fun just to go on playing charades and seeing my Aunt Annie in a lampshade! Her school had already been on half-term. We were a whole week later than everyone else but we break up a week earlier. On the other hand we do LOADS of homework and we start at half-past eight every morning and don’t finish until half-past four, which I think is quite a LONG DAY.

       Please write soon!

       Lots of love

       from your friend

       Violet XXX

       PS This is a joke my Uncle Dave told me. How do you make a sausage roll? Push it!

       PPS Did you manage to work out all the flower words?

       Hi, Violet!

       Sorry I haven’t written for ages. Almost ten days! I expect you will have been wondering what has happened and whether you have said something to offend me, which is what I would most probably be wondering if you didn’t write back to me like almost IMMEDIATELY.

       I have been in bed, boo hoo! I have had this really bad cold and couldn’t go to school, which I absolutely hate. There are some people that think it is fun, not having to go to school, but I am not one of them! It is just so boring, lying in bed, even though Mum stayed home to keep me company. I kept thinking all the time of what was going on at school without me, and wanting so much to write to you but I just felt too woozy. Like my head was full of fog. I did try starting a letter but my hand went like

       all across the page so that you wouldn’t have been able to read it anyway! It was, like, all sh-sh-shivery and sh-sh-shaky. Like a g-g-g-ghost.

       I am not yet back at school so I am going to write you this really LONG letter. Be warned!!!

       I did your flower arrangements. (Mum says it is called ANAGRAMS, when you mix up the letters of a word.)

      Uptil (tulip)

      Sore (rose)

      Drogmail (marigold)

      Foglevox (foxglove)

      Shopytalun (polyanthus)

       Marigold and polyanthus were really difficult! Especially as polyanthus is one I hadn’t heard of… Mum had to help me with that one! I expect you know all about flowers because of your mum.

       The flowers were in your first letter, which I expect by now you will have forgotten what you wrote. I will have to remind you!

       I keep all of your letters. Do you keep mine? While I was in bed I read through all of yours and I just felt so happy that we are pen pals!

       Mum says that the lily that Lily is named after is probably a TIGER lily. A tiger lily would look like this:

       I still like violets best!

       I couldn’t help laughing about your visit to the British Museum and seeing a mummy that looked like one of your teachers! I have done a strip cartoon of it. I will stick it on Now.

       Next week, me and Mum are doing a sponsored walk for the Cats’ Protection League. We got Bella and Bertie from them and so that is why we always support them. These are the people I have been sponsored by:

      The lady who lives upstairs, Mrs Cathcart. (She is old but very nice. Sometimes if I am at home when Mum is at school I go upstairs and watch TV with her.)

      

      Our next door neighbours (both sides).

      

      The lady in the newspaper shop.

      

      The whole of my class at school!

      

       If I walk right round (five miles) I will make… £52!!! I am really looking forward to it.

       I am glad you enjoyed your nan’s birthday party. It sounded like fun. I specially liked Auntie Annie in the lampshade!

       I told Mum about your granddad saying to your nan that “It has a hole in its bottom”. Mum thought it was very funny! Mrs Cathcart came down on Sunday afternoon for tea and we played the game of “How does It resemble me?” but we didn’t have a flower pot! Mrs Cathcart is too old and might have been upset.

       You