“Good Lord old chap! I had no idea that you were twenty-seven and working in Town! Thought you were thirteen and rather tall for your age!” said Chris’s uncle, who was in fact a family friend.
“Oh Alison,” Chris’s aunty whispered to his mother. “Doesn’t he look young? Of course, he doesn’t appreciate it now but he’ll be grateful later on in life,” she commiserated, making her last sentence more audible.
But Chris heard everything – not even a tad deaf in his youth (quite hard to say, even in one’s head) – and blushed to his roots. As much as the young Chris had grown accustomed to the frequent comments and asides about his beautiful “baby” blond curls and fresh ruddy complexion, he still found it excruciating. At that time he was a rich and successful surveyor, on his tenth sports car, owned his third house and thought he was a sex-god. (Ah, if only I had known him then… Hold on… I would have been fifteen.)
The years have been kind to my husband. He still has all his hair and old ladies still come up to him in supermarkets to admire his golden curls (which have been kissed by the sun, not chemicals, in case you’re suspicious).
Today it is Chris’s birthday, not a special birthday (unless you are of the mind that aging is a wonderful thing to rush towards with open arms) and, on a whole, we’d both rather forget birthdays; however, in our house we usually mark these milestones with romantic poems or personalised romantic cards. This birthday is no exception. I’m sure Chris won’t mind if I share with you the four cards I made for him last night…
Incidentally, when I was fifteen (and a burgeoning femme fatal – in my own mind) I was ending my paper-round one morning when several workman on their way to work passed by me. The eldest man greeted me with a wave and said:
“Good morning sonny!”
Mortifying!!!
An excerpt from the accompanying email:-
It’s very nearly your birthday and all I have prepared for you are four cards. I’m hoping that at least one of them meets with your expectations of both “humour and romance” (is that how you put it?). In fact two of them are part of a whole – a sort of two for one experience – intended to make you feel great about your fine attributes, especially because I value them so highly!
I chose one of my favourite recent photographs of you and you will see that I’ve used it to good effect on each of the cards. Incidentally, I think that Stan Laurel really was quite good looking when he was being normal…
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