sit very very still

Despite having extremely important things like looking at reversing rings and extension tubes on eBay so that I won't be completely unable to take close-up pictures of things over the next couple of weeks* we had to head to Glasgow today, first of all to meet and swap giftlets with Nicky's mum as we'll not see her again until the new year and thereafter to meet, eat and distribute presents to the childs of Nicky's school-peer-group. I wasn't entirely sure what the deal was; although the gifts had obviously arrived at the same time as we did (though I'd kept them behind my back in an Ikea bag in case we were supposed to be being surreptitious), had been visibly placed on the floor by us and were clearly labelled as being from us they will apparently be forwarded to Santa for re-delivery at the appropriate time; perhaps this was the variation on the story told when the parents were young but it seems unlikely. I'd have thought that in the minds of the childs this would equate to the presents (seemingly safely stored beneath the tree) being temporarily stolen by a composite mythological character with the blessing of the parents involved; if I was one of those childs I'd try and hide the excitinger-looking presents just in case anything happened to them before opening-time.

The house's owner used to be much more sensibly paranoid about this speaker and the left-hand twin, not allowing anything to be placed near them and especially not upon them, resting delicately as they are on those bass-transmission-reducing pointy things. The addition of the snowman and the proximity of the presents would be extremely likely to override the keep-away-from-the-speaker directive doubtless installed in the house's smaller occupants. The lack of a safe zone around such devices is perhaps necessary at a time of year when what was previously a large, spacious and uncluttered house shows the occasional sign of slight strain. Perhaps the speakers have already had a few knocks and bashes and have lost the newness which originally needed protecting.