surprisingly

C (over-the-road C) and F have suddenly bonded today. See, there's me writing that off and thinking it's all over and - all of a sudden - there we go - bonding!
And it's largely thanks to that nice Mr Gates and his lovely XBox and those troublesome Sims. C and F played that for about 45 mins today and made each other giggle quite a bit, doing impressions of the Sims falling asleep on the floor here and there, making and experimenting to see if they could control them from outside the living-room on the stairs, etc. They also played with the Superplexus ball briefly and then they packed a little bag and took it over to C's where some minor stuff was swapped (yes I did check what went and what came back and didn't allow some things to go - call me paranoid!) and they played 'experiments' with shiny things and water and perfume and then F came back. All very nice and clearly there is potential there, after all.
I hadn't realized which school C goes to but today she was wearing her uniform and I have identified that she goes to the same school that R goes to, and A who lives down the road and a few others we know.

What else have we been doing? Er, playing The Sims 2 a lot, sometimes 2-player, sometimes with me providing literacy assistance and explaining how to get them to get jobs and make friends and try for a baby. Which was fun. More fun than my work, so I only got about 3 pages done for most of the day, what with all that and the plumber coming to do the kitchen tap.
So I will be working a lot tonight and tomorrow and tomorrow night. Shopping should be delivered in a while though and J is doing pie and chips for tea, so it's not all bad.

As I was finishing this, I heard the lorry with the carols playing and alerted F that Father Christmas was heading down the street, so she could wave and watch. Opened the door and C was over outside their house too, so she and C enjoyed shouting over the road to each other about it and waving to each other as well as Father Christmas - it was really nice to see them sharing their excitement, both waiting for the return trip too, calling out 'He's going to come back this way!' (Santa has to turn at the end of the close). My shopping delivery arrived in the middle of it all but managed not to get disastrously mixed up with the festivities.