Letter

Yesterday, I let my daughter post a letter for me.

Now, as she’s 12, going on 13, and the letter box is roughly 100 metres from our house, you might think this is not a particularly noteworthy or impressive feat.

You might think that, but you'd be wrong.

The journey, or perhaps I should call it an expedition, involved a five minute briefing from me on where exactly she was to cross the road (directly opposite our home, in a very quiet cul de sac), how she was to stick to the path (you know, along the lines of Red Riding Hood), and then how (having achieved her objective) she was to return along the exact same route, checking carefully for traffic at all times.

I watched through the window.

She looked left and right and ambled across the road, chatting away furiously to one of her imaginary friends as she did so. (I learned in the debrief that it was Freya, an old favourite).

She walked along the path, clutching the letter to her chest with one hand, and gesticulating with the other, as the conversation with Freya got more intense. 

Then, for a minute or two, she was out of sight.

I think I held my breath.

And she was back. Still chatting, with that odd little wobble-headed, flappy-armed walk of hers, checking for cars as she crossed the road again, before she wandered up our drive and back through the door, her chest thrust forward and puffed up with pride.

Now all I need to do is train her to go to the off-licence.


By the way, the letter was a cheque payment for my Visa bill. If she somehow managed to post it down the drain by mistake, then any late payment fee is coming straight out of her piggy bank. 

Video is an excerpt from Hill Street Blues

Video is The Main Theme from Italian film Il Postino. Be warned, you'll be whistling it all day.