Welcome to my blog, where I take pleasure in words and pictures, be they my own or those of others. I'm a creative individual, and the crafty side I explore on my 'other blog', Picking Up The Threads, which I hope you'll visit too. I'm sure you understand that I have sole copyright of my original work and any of my contributions, so please ask if you want to use them. A polite request is rarely refused. So, as they used to say on the BBC's 'Listen With Mother' radio programme, many years ago: "Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin."

Friday 25 November 2016

Birthday Blessings


The lovely young lady above is my Mum aged just twenty-one, shortly after she had joined the ATS. I’ve told the story before in You’re in the Army Now so there’s no need to dwell on those far off days. Instead let’s celebrate today, Mum’s 96th Birthday. Through the wonders of modern technology I was able to have a face-to-face call with her and send birthday wishes across a couple of thousand miles. My brother and his family took her for an outing, and when she got back to the care home where she now lives, there was a birthday cake and tea. She had cards, presents and phone calls from various family members and friends, though she was a wee bit confused over who was who. She seemed quite content, even though she has apparently told my brother that this will be her last birthday!

















Dad couldn’t be there to give her a card as he died four years ago tomorrow, so I showed her and read out some of the old cards he sent over the years, almost from when they were teenage sweethearts.


We admired the lovely pictures and especially Dad’s beautiful handwriting. This must have been 1955 as Dad had written, “Cheer Up, it’s only half way.” In those days you weren’t expected to enjoy the long life my parents had. On her 70th, Dad wrote, “Thank You for sharing your three score years and ten with me.” I don’t suppose either of them thought they’d live into their nineties, let alone celebrate their 70th Wedding Anniversary.

I have often written about my mother’s resilient personality and, when I saw her a couple of months ago, she looked as though she had a way to go yet. Let’s hope so.
Happy 96th Birthday Mum.



Join us at Sepia Saturday for more pictures and memories.

7 comments:

  1. What a lovely lady! And that final photo is delightful. what a good idea to read her the cards dating back all those years!

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  2. A wonderful tribute to a long life. Shame you are not closer.

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  3. What a marvelous idea to show your Mom and read to her some of the cards your Dad had sent her over the years. Gives me some ideas for (hopefully) my Mom's 99th birthday next May, maybe? Time will tell. I'd like to see her make it to 100 so she can have her picture on a jar of Smucker's jam and be feted by Willard Scott on the "Today" show, but I'm not sure she wants to go that far - either in age, or having her picture on a jar of Smucker's jam?

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  4. Very touching, I love that old card. She certainly sounds like a strong woman.

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  5. Wonderful photo of your Mum at 21, and great to see that lovely smile still shining through.

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  6. Simply grand! What a fine thing is the internet to turn a blog post into a birthday tribute, a kind of digital bouquet of flowers. Best wishes to your Mum.

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  7. Happy birthday indeed. And I can clearly see a lot of you in your mother (or a lot of your mother in you). That first photograph is almost bursting with life.

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