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A couple of Christmases ago Becky gave me a little wallet of visiting cards for this blog. She knew I have a penchant for talking to people on my wanderings, and that, particularly if I had photographed them, they sometimes asked for the WordPress details. On these occasions I would fish around in my pockets, find, like David Jason’s Jack Frost, an old receipt or shopping list, write the details on the back, and hand it over. Becky gave me a more professional air. A few days ago, I handed my last card to Peter, who had stopped to ask directions which Jackie provided with the aid of an Ordnance Survey map.
Our daughter has sent me a pdf by e-mail, providing a sheet of ten cards. All that was required of me was to print the image and guillotine the cards. Becky made her selection from pictures on a variety of posts. Unbeknown to me, she has been noting prospective new ones for a further set when she gets a round tuit.
Among the debris on my desk was a little envelope containing two stray colour slides believed to have been lost until I found them a while ago. Today I decided to identify and scan them.
The first one was easy. It was Sam and me in May 1981 on a visit to The Owl House garden. I haven’t been able to establish its location, but my recollection is somewhere near Tunbridge Wells. Perhaps my memory is playing tricks. (Overnight, I remembered. The garden is at Lamberhurst in Kent. It was there that I took the photograph I adapted for the drawing for the cover of the Family Service Unit annual report for 1980/1981)
The ribbon in her hair identifies the baby in Jackie’s mother’s tender arms as Becky, sometime in August 1970, when she was about a week old. Mum Rivett was standing at the bottom of her garden of Westbrook, Shrewsbury Road, Beckenham. This is just half the image that required considerable retouching because the muck all over it meant a good clean up was in order. I have made our daughter a print.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s piquant cauliflower cheese; tangy smoked haddock; creamy mashed potato, carrots and swede; and crisp broccoli. I drank Cepa Lebrel reserva rioja 2012.