Why it's my sister's fault that I write!!

One of my favourite memories of England was our Saturday ritual which included getting a shiny little sixpence which held the promise of all sorts of wonderful things to come.  As a child, the pondering is a large part of the joy, whereas for the adult in supervision, the pondering is akin to Japanese water torture! That little sixpence could buy a bounty of  wonderful sweets, some of my favourites being Sherbet Fountains and white chocolate mice... flying saucers filled with a sweet powdery substance and all sorts of other wonders which were both magical to behold, and delicious to taste! By the time our choosing was done, we were popped into the car ( a little yellow Rover 2000) and whisked home to devour our treats.  I tended to relish the moment, and in all ways actually I was slower than Angela! Slower dressing, slower cleaning up my bedroom, slower moving...well you get my point!!  That being understood it stands to reason that my sister's sweets were consumed and indeed gone before I had finished playing with my white chocolate mouse.  There I would be in my room, with my sweets laid out on my unmade bed, and there would be a little tap on my door...knock, knock, knock..."come in" I would say, except in a British accent of course...and Angela would come in, all bright eyed and a smile as sweet as the candy she was eyeing on my bed!  "Lets play a game" she would suggest..."what game" I would ask foolishly..."You are the rich Princess and I am the little starving pauper."..."alright", I say (why I don't know)..."Oh you beautiful and kind Princess, I am starving to death...would you please give me some food to eat?"...."Of course" I would reply..."What would you like?"... Well it turned out that she basically "liked" everything I had, and for strange reasons known only to God Himself I would feed my Pauper/Sister over and over again most Saturday mornings!!!!  It never really occurred to me to say "No" or to eat my sweets more quickly, but it did bring about a change in me.  The sweet shop was in a row of shops, which also included a bakery (I got lost once and ended up at the bakery where they gave me a doily while I cried!!!) and a stationary shop among others.  One Saturday I paused outside the window of the stationary store and was filled with a warm excited feeling.  I asked to go in, and there found beautiful pens and pencils, pretty paper books in all sorts of colours, notebooks with pretty pictures on them with matching equally pretty envelopes.  I was in love with stationary !!!

From then on , well almost from then on, I bought stationary instead of sweets, and little plastic tea sets that I could play "tea party" with my dolls, but no sweets to serve them!!!  My life was forever changed, and I still love stationary, even if I'm terrible at writing letters!  So Thanks Angela... all this writing came from you and as a direct result of your very convincing "Pauper" role!!!