Birthday Daughter

Little did I know when I embraced motherhood so carelessly 53 years ago today, just what a life changer it would be.
Straight out of higher education, with a new husband, a new baby, a new house on the top of a hill outside a dreary county town in industrial Lanarkshire, no relations within 50 miles, missing city life and with no experience of tiny living people, I was completely under qualified for this rite of passsage.

They say that if you don't remember the 60s, you weren't there. But I was, and my 60s featured terrifyingly huge prams*, muslin squares with bulky terry nappies and waterproof over pants, savagely big nappy pins, pails of Napisan with disgusting contents, clothes lines filled with frozen stiff nappies, and omnipresent, the babies needing constant attention.

Yes, despite everything, my lovely little red haired first born was worth all the loneliness and hard work of early motherhood and in time became the chieftain of a small clan of followers, all of whom will be wishing her a very Happy Birthday today.

The cake has yet to be baked in the Dower House, but the party will be tomorrow which as luck would have it coincides with another big birthday for Lady Findhorn.
*Exra image