It is Muti's birthday tomorrow, she will be 78. I am only able to tell you that because I know that she will never find out I told you. She doesn't know one end of a computer from another....and doesn't want to. I have tried to tell her it is a good way to travel in the comfort of your own armchair....but she is having none of it.
This time last year we were in Australia with my sister. I made a baked egg custard tart and we stuck a candle and a sparkler in it.......Muti loved it... she thought it was better than any birthday cake. Easily pleased!
Last year for her present I bought her a lovely fine cotton Victorian embroidered night dress...why is it that old folk put things like that away 'for best'.....I bought it for her to wear, not to stick in tissue paper 'so that it doesn't go yellow' and hide it away in her drawers.
This year I have been racking my brains for what to give ...in the end I have spent many long hours transcribing the diary I wrote while we were in Oz.....illustrating the entries with photographs and making it into a book. I previously made an album of photographs as a present for her and she looks at it almost every day and tells me what great enjoyment she gets from it...so her present this year is the diary of events. I will tuck some cash into her birthday card too, but I think that cash is a very unimaginative gift...although she has recently been given a DVD player so she will maybe treat herself to a comedy DVD as well. Here's hoping she appreciates the long hours of typing...I'm pretty sure she will.
This time last year we were in Australia with my sister. I made a baked egg custard tart and we stuck a candle and a sparkler in it.......Muti loved it... she thought it was better than any birthday cake. Easily pleased!
Last year for her present I bought her a lovely fine cotton Victorian embroidered night dress...why is it that old folk put things like that away 'for best'.....I bought it for her to wear, not to stick in tissue paper 'so that it doesn't go yellow' and hide it away in her drawers.
This year I have been racking my brains for what to give ...in the end I have spent many long hours transcribing the diary I wrote while we were in Oz.....illustrating the entries with photographs and making it into a book. I previously made an album of photographs as a present for her and she looks at it almost every day and tells me what great enjoyment she gets from it...so her present this year is the diary of events. I will tuck some cash into her birthday card too, but I think that cash is a very unimaginative gift...although she has recently been given a DVD player so she will maybe treat herself to a comedy DVD as well. Here's hoping she appreciates the long hours of typing...I'm pretty sure she will.
