Happy Birthday

87 years young today. And now the second longest lived member of our immediate family. As her father (my grandfather) made it to 98 - and was still going strong right up to the end - there’s a good chance that I’ll be able to celebrate many more birthdays with mum.
One disadvantage of reaching that sort of age is that exciting presents don’t really feature any more. For my last birthday I received a voucher for the longest zip line in Europe. Mum got flowers from one of my sisters, chocolates from the other one and flowers AND chocolates from me (always best to outdo ones siblings to reinforce my status of “favourite child”)
As she was going out for lunch we had the rest of the day to ourselves. Spent a couple of hours wandering round a large furniture store, trying to find some comfortable chairs and a settee to go in the lounge once it’s been decorated and carpeted. The present settee is only a couple of years old, but it has turned out to be quite uncomfortable. But that’s what you get for buying with your wallet rather than your backside. We have now found some extremely comfortable chairs, but they are eye-wateringly expensive. Looking at it on a cost per year basis though, if they lasted ten years it would actually work out cheaper than what the current settee has cost us over two years!
As the sun had finally come out by then, we headed up the Wirral to Parkgate and treated ourselves to an ice cream from Nicholls, which we enjoyed sitting on a bench looking out over the Dee Estuary. A nice end to a good day.