"Birthday" drabbles by Neville Hunt

Plans

Birthday #2

US President ‘Ike’ Eisenhower said plans are useless but planning is essential. After essential planning, my plans of returning home from remote Suffolk, after yesterday’s unplanned birthday celebration here, have had to change. Mother Nature’s wrath has rained down on me with, well, rain... gale force winds and icy temperatures. The monster Orwell Bridge is closed so the town is gridlocked by man, not nature. The whole point of coming, visiting the old lady in hospital may not be possible today.

Maybe Mother Nature is mourning yet another year passing for me. I’d better stay here and drink to that!

How not to spend your birthday

Birthday #1

J&M plus little H were coming round late afternoon for my roast birthday lunch. Before then we’d be going for a walk, stopping at the Strath for a pint or two, before the downhill walk home, possibly ‘watering’ trees en route. It’s beautiful rolling countryside and the beer would be great. Just perfect for my birthday.

However, two days earlier we got the call... ancient mother-in-law rushed off to hospital 100 miles away. Dropping everything, we sped across country.

‘At death’s door’ apparently as we left, she looked better than ever when we arrived.

Oh well... next year...!