Happy birthday, Dad; and things you might not have predicted

This begonia semperflorens has bloomed since last spring, which is very cheerful of it. It's a bit leggy but bright, at least. In a few weeks I'll chop it back for cuttings. 

I've been going through photos again. This is my father's mother, who - unusually for a lady in her eighties in the 1960s - lived in Pakistan for a few years with my aunt, her daughter - who was a doctor there. 

Today is my father's 101st birthday. Here he is in a natty velvet suit with his little sister (who became the doctor in Pakistan). 

One of the problems is this huge album, which contains souvenirs from my parents' Golden Wedding dinner in their rather posh club. It contains the guest list, the menu signed by the guests, all the many cards they received, photos of flowers they received and of the guests at the party, my dad's speech... and so on. I had just decided to be ruthless and fillet it for a few things when Mr L said he thought I ought to keep in intact. So I did. For the moment. It's all rather sad, since their friends were on the whole rather successful and confident people and now they're all gone. Again - not sad really - everyone has to die - but. You know. Tempus fugit and all that. 

There were lots of letters, many of the less relevant of which I've firmly thrown out, but I've kept family ones such as this to me from my dad, in 1970 when I was in America. I had to look up who the Chancellor who died was (Iain MacLeod - I remember him vaguely). Poor old Barber (only just remember him, I fear), wasting his time (as it turns out) on EU negotiations. And people indeed don't send so many Christmas cards now - young people, anyway - but not so much because of the postage as because of other methods of communication, I think, not easy to predict in 1970.

Imagine Sir John having an £8000 car in 1970!

It snowed a bit earlier in the week and then it snowed A LOT. 

Big Grandson came for the day yesterday and I was just about to take him home at 7.30pm but then looked outside. I hadn't done so for a couple of hours, and it had snowed rather a lot and was still snowing heavily. I decided not to risk an hour's drive there and back, so he stayed the night. 

And by the morning...

 

He and Grandpa did some manly snow-clearing

and then Son-in-Law 1 brought Biggest Granddaughter over for the afternoon and they played outside for a while (and also inside in the warm). I'm glad they're getting this snow experience but I hope it doesn't last too long. I'm ready, SO ready, for spring. And some good news. The media keep telling us that the vaccine that we got doesn't work too well for over 70s - though there are other voices who tell us not to worry about this, for various scientific reasons. What can we do - but plod on?