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He lives independently , in a house with a slightly older boy ; their social worker Melanie lives downstairs and keeps a pretty tight eye on them and another pair of boys next door . But that may have been the Titanic 's last trip , for rumor has it that it spent the remainder of the winter marooned on an iceberg in a car park in southern Calgary . Perhaps we should have mowed the grass - - ducklings have such a hard time , it 's like a jungle with no machetes - - but we eventually moved these two weaklings to the sick bay , a grass-filled shoebox in the laundry , and gave them water and soaked oats . She got another job in a health club near where we used to live , but public transport from her apartment was difficult . Her big trip was going to be a long weekend in Opotoki ( and you ca n't get less exotic than that ) with a friend in September , but this got cancelled because of widespread flooding and road closures . She 'd just like to point out that as the full-time worker in this family , she has n't had the chance to go anywhere exotic this year . There was a huge crowd of boats out to see them off , and since there was no wind at all everything was moving very slowly , with a languid , festive air . So what were our daughters doing all this time ? Perplexed , another bird came to sit on the fence and watch the frustration before flying off effortlessly to show how easy it is . Approaching Auckland on our return , we called ahead to Pam 's brother Graham , only to learn the shocking news that a few days earlier Pam 's father Peter was taken suddenly ill and had in fact passed away that morning . The new challenge has certainly been interesting , but there 's a long way to go before she 's proficient enough to accompany anyone with confidence , and her brave attempts so far often leave the students giggling . Claire , another weird out-of-time experience since he used to race regularly with ( also very similar ) Pippa all those years ago . To enter would involve a far narrower , riskier , passage , and at this point our courage deserted us and we headed back for the " civilization " ( or so it seemed from out there ! May peace be with you and Christmas letters come earlier this year . This did n't really surprise us as she 's always had an innate sense of justice and been quick to leap to the defence of anyone who she 's felt has been hard done by - - an admirable trait . A nostalgic , if hazily-remembered , evening with Pete and FranXoise from university days ever so long ago , and another nostalgic weekend in Wivenhoe , including a seminar at Ian 's old department there and plenty of drinks on the quay . After one of those trips from hell where you find yourself stranded in the US , wearing only shorts , T-shirt and sandals , carrying only a computer ( no toothbrush , sweater , or clean undies ) , at an airport thousands of miles from anywhere on your itinerary , getting to a hotel at 1 AM ( after a long argy-bargy with airline officials ) and being collected from it at 4 AM , with a dinner voucher and a breakfast voucher ( only to be used on that day , at that hotel ) , he eventually arrived at Calgary and set off in search of Anna . Sarah and Alex are university lecturers in English literature and philosophy , and between them they created a tongue-in-cheek eyewitness account of that eventful day which is so compelling that we have appended it to this letter . But it cost a fortune . The clarinet quartet he organises has been having a lot of fun , with weekly meetings as either quartet or trio , and has also been indulging in some jazz along with the regular diet of modern classical music . But do n't worry : you wo n't get a copy - - there are 150 pages and we ca n't afford such a large printing .