Shrapnel Shortage

At this time of year, I’m experiencing a severe lack of shrapnel. The jingly-jangly, non-maiming type of shrapnel that you find at the bottom of your bag, in your coat pockets, or in Big Seymour’s work trousers.
Shrapnel of that kind is always useful, and often gets me out of a fix when I am held to ransom over a school trip, or a raffle ticket or a (belated) poppy.
I don’t mind digging out the shrapnel for those things. Not really. It’s all part of the manic, leaky-pocket experience that is December. There’s no saving at this time of year – we just charge full steam ahead into the glorious excesses of Christmas, then wallow luxuriously for a short while, only to spend Boxing Day onwards worrying that the Four Little Seymours are, in fact, spoiled brats.

I don’t think they are really. Simply by living in this part of the world, they have more than most. And it’s not for their benefit that I purchase the dodgy Christmas cards they’ve made, or the photos that they’re in. That’s just what you do – tradition, I suppose.
It’s hard, though, to buy a school photograph and know that it’ll be years before there will be a wall worthy of hanging it on. My collection of gurning children will be massive by the time it goes on display, and by then, I’ll be glad I spent the money, because they’ll probably all be over twenty, unrecognisable, hairy and married.

To add to the fun, the Little Seymours and their peers had a fundraising event the other day. According to Boy Seymour, they had to run around the field because Wales had a whirlpool in their school. They needed more of my shrapnel. But in a strange and modern twist, they wanted it electronically, so I spent an hour trying to work out how to log on to the website so I could magic a few quid to the whirlpool-stricken Welsh.
The Run for Nepal, as it was officially known, went off without a hitch, and hopefully went some way towards preparing the Little Seymours to be grateful for all that they will receive at Christmas, even if the reason for their running may not have entirely got through to them.

As if there wasn’t enough going on already at this time, the Little Seymours’ teeth appear to be dropping like flies. Little Seymour Number Two has lost a couple, and Boy Seymour looked so peculiar in his nativity tea towel headdress the other day without any front teeth, I barely recognised him. But with the tooth loss, comes the expectation that The Fairy will visit, and we all know what that means: more rummaging for little bits of metal in pots and pockets around the house.
I don’t know about everybody else’s fairy, but ours doesn’t provide her own money. Sometimes she doesn’t even remember to take the teeth away. But with a little help from me, she usually gets there in the end, and is really rather obliging.
Little Seymour Number Two had worked out that her tooth, which fell out during a sleepover, and was returned safely later, would actually be surrendered to The Fairy just before the annual book fair at school. She had written a very detailed letter to The Fairy, asking for – wait for it – two or three pounds with which to buy a book.
I nearly choked. Not bloomin’ likely! I said. But then I remembered that it isn’t up to me.
And so, against my advice, The Fairy deposited not two but three of my pounds under the pillow of Little Seymour Number Two, which resulted not only in whoops of joy at the crack of dawn, but also my purse being empty again.
Unfortunately, when we got to the book fair, mean old Mummy decided that all the books were extortionately over-priced, and even though The Tooth Fairy had done her bit, I scuppered the whole thing by pointing out to Little Seymour Number Two that the money she’d asked for wouldn’t cover the cost of the book she wanted. Boy Seymour’s lip wobbled when I guffawed at the price of his chosen story, and said no way Jose.
We left the book fair feeling utterly fed up, and despite my explanation that we had other things to spend our money on “like a roof”, the Little Seymours were not best pleased.
It is true that we do have to do a lot with our money – the budget for the works on the Funny Little Bungalow is so stupidly small that we’d be laughed off Grand Designs. This build is funded mainly by optimism and Big Seymour’s sweat.
I hate to say no to the Little Seymours – especially when it comes to books. But I am trying to make them realise that waiting for things is sometimes more rewarding. I’ve had a little word with Father Christmas, who is trying his best to track down the books in question. I can’t wait to see their faces if he succeeds…
Patience is not an easy thing to find sometimes. I myself have been feeling rather anxious about the state of the house this week. It probably has something to do with me nearly blowing Big Seymour up with the busted oven on Monday. Everything seems to be falling apart.
We are definitely at the “getting worse before it gets better” stage, and when I said this to a friend this week, she inadvertently pointed out that it’d be a while before we are out of that phase.
She’s right. It’s going to be a long haul.
I’m forty today. And, feeling all optimistic and buoyed up by the well-wishes of friends, I have re-discovered my positivity regarding the Funny Little Bungalow. It’s a mess at the moment, but it’s our mess – our home. We love living here. And I must follow my own advice and learn to have patience.

The Little Seymours have now recovered from their Bad Book Fair experience. Today, they have a pantomime to watch at school. They’re all genuinely excited about Christmas, and have posted off their lists to Father Christmas. I was reluctant to let them do this – I don’t like them to ask for things. But it was reassuring to see that at the end of the epic list belonging to Little Seymour Number One (who is cleverly hedging her bets about the truth of it all), she had written “Don’t feel that you have to get any of this stuff. They are just ideas, anything would be lovely.”
Bless her.

This was reassuring. Maybe they’re really not spoiled after all. Let’s face it, if they can endure living in a hovel with parents who’d rather buy Celcon Blocks than books for their children (!), they’re probably rather good eggs.

And for this reason, I am now very excited to see what Father Christmas will bring them as their reward.