Painful bones and joints have drastically reduced the number of cigarettes smoked and coffees drunk today and I don’t believe he has checked his emails and messages at all which is unheard off, due to the pain in his fingers. I can always tell when Mud is feeling truly dreadful because he makes hardly any fuss at all.Īs he shivered and shook on the sofa, feeling frozen to the bone even though he was fully dressed and huddled under his thick dressing gown, with a fire roaring away in the log burner, the Mudlets and I were in t-shirts. This wasn’t an entirely unexpected development, as a colleague with whom he has been working closely in the last week or two had been off work with a flu virus. Sadly, due to work, other commitments and circumstances, Eldest Mudlet wasn’t able to join us for Christmas this year which has caused me much sadness and heartache but, as is often the way, this may well have been a blessing in disguise for her because by 10am it had become apparent that Mud wasn’t very well at all. As for Little Mudlet, she managed to build the Cargo train and goods yard with only a very small amount of help from Mud (mainly involving tricky sticker placements) and her completed build is now in situ around the base of the tree and has already had a good amount of run time. At this point she decided to take a break from the Cafe build and turned her attention to her other presents. I deliberately used the word ‘started’ in reference to the Cafe because it is a complex and time consuming build for a 10 year old but by 4.30pm and after some 7.5 hours of build time (starting at 8.30am and deducting half an hour for lunch), Middle Mudlet had completed the ground floor and had started on the first floor with no help at all from Mud or I. With the presents unwrapped and gift paper in bin bags, each girl started to build: Little Mudlet opted to build her train first and Middle Mudlet started on her cafe. The Cafe and the Mall were the last of the gifts to be opened to a thrilled and delighted response by the recipients.Ĥ hours later and Middle Mudlet had made good progress with the first section of the building. So part way through the process the girls found themselves opening a major present and their reactions were priceless. Of course, this then changed the way in which the presents could be opened, as the smaller and cheaper packs of track could not be opened before the train sets themselves. So we also purchased some extra packs of track and these were wrapped up as supplementary presents. However, Mud realised that the track supplied with the trains wasn’t sufficient to produce a practical and/or useable layout, especially for the High Speed Passenger train. Unbelievably, we had managed to find the Mall and both trains at significantly discounted prices back in October and then decided to throw the Cafe into the mix as well. Actually when I say top of their lists I actually mean joint top because both girls had also included a Lego train as an alternative to their other choice and as luck would have it, they both wanted different trains with Middle Mudlet preferring the High Speed Passenger train whilst her younger sister had specified the Cargo train. Except this year, things were a little bit different.īoth girls had asked for Lego for Christmas – no surprise there then – with the Friends Lego Heartlake Shopping Mall top of Little Mudlets list, whilst the Parisian Restaurant Modular building claimed the number one spot for Middle Mudlet. We have a method for present opening in Mudville: smaller gifts are opened first and the main gifts are left until last. With coffee mug in hand, the camera ready and the stocking contents thoroughly investigated, the girls began the serious task of present opening. The detail of the first floor floors is amazing when you consider most of this will be hidden by tables etc.
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