Thank you!

Thank you for all the comments about bear. It gave me a lot of food for thought. I hope that I can include all of my responses in this post. I've studied all of your comments hard. 

One thing that I'm absolutely confident on - bear is not easily swayed by peer pressure. He does not care. There absolutely has been drink at the parties he's attended, but while I suspect that he may have had a drink at last New Year, I don't think he's made a habit of it. Bear is very capable of saying 'no'. 

We had a long talk about the whole 'drink' business. Bear doesn't particularly want to drink, especially after seeing how drunk people can behave. I have no problem supporting that. On the other hand, there are a lot of social expectations, and it's expected that a (nearly) 18 year old going to a party with other 18 year olds would bring something with an alcoholic value. I also want to convey to him that when you go to a party, you don't turn up empty handed. It's very likely that bear will be living away from home this time next year, among all the student parties, and I want him to have at least a sense of what is expected. 

In the end, bear took a bottle of white wine (easy to share and unlikely to stain if it's spilled), that was allegedly sweet, seriously inexpensive, and the lowest Alcohol By Volume rating on Tesco website. I doubt that he'll even have a mouthful of the stuff. If it somehow gets sent back to us, we'll use it in a risotto. 

The washing machine arrived. It looks awesome but I was starting with a sick headache and my joints have been very painful, so I'll start working out how to use it tomorrow. The delivery and communications were brilliant. I bought the machine from AO and I bought it online. I got calls the next day confirming the purchase, checking if I wanted a warranty, asking about parking for the delivery van and access and generally making sure that I knew what was expected. I got texts and emails on the day confirming the estimated time and when the van got near, I could track it on a map. The nice men carried it in, removed the old one (I paid for that service), connected everything up and didn't leave a mess. It all went smoothly, which is a nice change. 

Writing stuff - The Kane story today is new! You can find it here. I thought that it was time that he had another outing. And as I haven't managed a pic today, here is the pic from the story.

Photo by Christina Deravedisian on Unsplash

Hugs and good health to all.