How do you treat a family member to the birthday they've always wanted, without setting a dangerous precedent for future birthdays, future weekends, or future anything?
It's a problem that's now facing one local family, I read this morning in Onion News East Hampshire's print edition - did you "catch" it, I wonder? It's on page 94, if you want "chapter and verse" !!!!!
Well, she is turning 50, which is a bit of a milestone in anybody's life, to be fair!
Let me put my cards on the table at this point. My medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I have fortunately remembered that there's a certain somebody turning 50 in our own family this week.
my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me - we've suddenly
remembered that there's a significant birthday coming up in our family
"But who's turning 50 this week, Colin?", I hear you cry. "It's obviously not either you or Lois, you old codgers! That ship must have sailed for you a long time ago!"
Well, silence in court (!), because this week's "birthday boy" is none other than our son-in-law and hotshot London lawyer, Ed !!!"
And my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I have decided to "push the boat out" this year and get Ed a pair of socks for his big day, socks he can wear in court without attracting too much unwelcome attention, annoying the judge, or distracting the jury unduly (!).
our son-in-law, and hotshot London lawyer, seen here with one of
his many models of the capital's well-known landmarks
Also, to save having to go out and buy Ed a special "Bad Luck You're Fifty" card (or similar!!!), Lois and I are admittedly cutting a few corners by printing out a picture of the number "50" and sticking it on the corner of the card, with some of the "school glue" that Lois used to use on her artwork when she was a Sunday School teacher in the 1990's.
(left) Lois showcasing the makeshift birthday card we're giving Ed this year, with
a small picture of the number '50' glued on the top left corner, and (right) a pair of
socks he can wear in court on some of his more landmark cases
Will this do, do you think haha!!!!
Only joking, I hasten to add! It's all true about the socks and the makeshift card, I'm afraid (!), but we've just realised that today is Spring Bank Holiday and all the card shops are shut. And although we're getting him the socks, we've got his proper present coming soon, and we've had to tip Ed off that it may be a while till it's delivered - it's coming "all the way from France" (!), and it's an official yellow Tour-de-France Peloton 1979 Tour-de-France retro-cycling jersey.
It's been painful, admittedly, tracking its slow progress from the French factory. What madness !!!
Ed's a bit of a demon cyclist and this yellow jersey is maybe all he needs to "cut a dash" on one of his cycle rides, maybe? And also we think that, together with the socks we've got him, he could also "cut a dash" in court, and win over many a reluctant jury in a touch-and-go case.
Women lawyers can get away with wearing yellow in court, so why not us poor men, for once !!!!
No fair !!!!!!
(left) hotshot Welsh lawyer "Sharon the Law", as she's known in "the Valleys" (!),
and (right) American lawyer Ali McBeal (3rd from right) with law-firm colleagues
Anyways, Lois and I take the opportunity this morning to drive the 7 mile journey from our new home in Liphook, Hampshire across the "county line" to nearby Churt, Surrey, to see Ed in person, hand him the birthday card and the socks, and to tell him the good news that his proper present has "landed" in England, and will get to him in a matter of days, or weeks possibly, at the very least (!).
It's a Bank Holiday Monday, so Ed is relaxing at home today with his dogs and with his wife - our own dear daughter Alison, so it's nice for Lois and me to have a cup of Earl Grey tea with them and to chat about this and that.
It's a good opportunity for us to talk, because their 3 teenage kids - Josie (18), Rosalind (16) and Isaac (14) are all busy studying in their rooms for their post-half-term exams. Josie's got more of her A-Level exams coming up, which will crucial for her to secure a place at (hopefully) either Bath or Durham University starting in the autumn.
Lois and I drop in on our daughter Alison at their temporary rental home
outside Churt, Surrey, the house they're renting while their real home is being refurbished
Our Ed - and he'll be fifty this week! Awwww !!!!!
He's still fit as a fiddle, and cycling like a 49-year-old (which he is, of course!!!)
Flashback to a few years ago: Ed (right) with old chum Jonathan
outside Buckingham Palace on a charity Brighton to London bike ride
When we get home, I see if I can find some photos of our own 50th birthdays that year, but without success. I think life was too busy for us then to take much in the way of photos.
We had much the same concerns as Ali and Ed have today. Our two daughters, Ali and Sarah, were having their first experiences of university then, just like our granddaughter Josie will be later this year. The school to university transition didn't go smoothly for either of our girls, and both had false starts, which, at the time, was a bit of a concern to Lois and me, to put it mildly.
Ali had tried Exeter in 1994, but had decided to quit and come home after a few weeks, trying again at Cardiff the following year (1995), a lucky choice because Cardiff was where she med Ed, her future husband. Sarah tried Birmingham in 1996, but didn't like it, and came home, trying Lancaster in 1997 and this time it worked out for her too, and she got her degree there a few years later.
(left) flashback to September 1996: (left) our daughter Ali (21) who'd just started university
at Cardiff and had already met her future husband Ed, and (right) we take
our other daughter Sarah (19) to start a degree course at Birmingham University,
little knowing that she'd be back home with us within a few weeks !!!!
For Lois and me, starting September 1996, for a couple of months at least (!), was our first experience of "empty nest syndrome", and we had a nice holiday for two in Normandy to get used to this weird new stage in our life.
flashback to us in September 1996, on holiday in Normandy, both newly turned 50
and getting used to "empty nest syndrome" and planning this next new stage in our life
flashback to Christmas Day 1996, with (clockwise from front left) my dear
late parents, then Sarah and Ali, then my dear late brother Steve (not shown) and Lois.
So yes, 1996 was a bit of a milestone year for Lois and me, also, sadly, for my dear late father, who was deteriorating rapidly, and had stopped driving that year. This was the last time he joined us for Christmas before we eventually checked him into a nearby care-home, some time during 1997.
And the odd thing is, it all still feels like it was only yesterday !!!!
Yikes !!!!!
In our birthday card to Ed, we say. just jokingly (!), "Here's to your next fifty!" and "Hope to be around for your 100th, in 2075!".
"Admire your sense of humour! Amusing concept and all-round great joke, Colin!" I hear you cry, but stranger things have happened. By coincidence a timely text comes in today from Steve, our American brother-in-law, indicating that Vitamin D, which Lois and I have been taking 10 mg's of, daily, for a decade or more, can cut the ageing process significantly.
Turning 50, or even turning 100, is a "grand old age" to put it mildly. But one Hampshire "ex-resident" turns 250 (in a manner of speaking!) just this week. Step forward, world-class novelist "Ms" Jane Austen !!!!
And tonight Lois and I see the first part of a new BBC drama documentary series about her life.
We hear about Jane's rather raunchy early writing attempts and, as a "great dancer", her love of summer balls, the place to meet you future husband, wearing your most alluring low-cut gown and showcasing all your sexiest "bumping and grinding" moves for the benefit of the local marriageable young men, the programme reveals! We also hear how much Jane "hated" Bath, the city most associated with her today - what madness !!!!
Unfortunately for her, the men she was most likely to be introduced to, couldn't match her great intelligence. This was ironic, seeing that the men would go on to have challenging and lucrative careers while she herself was expecting to be "condemned" to being just wife-and-mother material. What madness, wasn't it!
And this is a frustration which later crops up from time to time in her writing. And it features also in her first major attempt at novel writing, "Lady Susan", all about a rich widow trying to marry off her teenage daughter. In this scene (see below), Lady Susan has arranged for a wealthy but dim suitor, the young Sir James Martin, to visit her daughter at their home, Churchill Manor.
Although given directions for how to find Churchill Manor, Sir James quickly gets lost, due to a misunderstanding on his part over the name of the house, when he's trying to fathom out Lady Susan's instructions.
Oh dear! Is Sir James "one screw short of a toolbox" perhaps, or whatever the phrase is: that is, nice but dim???
Later, at dinner, Sir James is again puzzled by one of the plates on the table.
And at the end of this thought-provoking first episode, Jane, after many disappointments in the love and courtship stakes, makes a conscious decision not to marry, but to remain an independent woman. To do otherwise, she reasons, would force her to give up her writing, which had become her first love.
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!!
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