Birthday Boy!

It's my birthday today. I was born 56 years ago at home in Cardiff, the oldest of four siblings, two of which survive. My brother David is 18 months younger than me, and I am 13 years older than my sister who was the only one of us born in hospital. Now it's rare to be born at home.

I'm quite close to my brother as we did the same job and even worked at the same station for a while. We speak alike, and this caused some hilarity when speaking on the phone to people who didn't know. One admin clerk was getting quite shirty when she thought I was fooling around, insisting he didn't have a brother. Jokes, pranks and a sense of humour are a must in a stressful job.

My brother has been grey for well over 20 years. I'm only just going grey. What's disturbing is that I now notice the odd grey eyebrow appearing. the wife's tweezers are working overtime! How long I will keep most of my black hair I don't know. It grows so thick and fast. My brother's nickname is 'fluffy'. A man came into the station one day, many years ago, and said he'd been speaking to an officer with thick grey fluffy hair. Of course, he never lived this down!

He's three former wives and has been living with his present partner quite a few years. It's joked that this has caused his premature greyness. He's quite a character and I think it's the life style. I'm good by comparison.

I got up this morning after the wife had gone to work, to find a surprise present on the table. On opening it I found a cartoon of me taking a photo of Cardiff Castle keep, and my son's two dogs, and chickens in it. My wife had contacted a cartoonist in the Malvern area, e-mailed him photo's of me, the dogs, and told him my interest and the story of the chickens. He'd then drawn the cartoon and she got it sent to the daughter's house. The chickens are from a country walk we did, when on two separate occasions, the dogs chased free range chickens much to the annoyance of the owners. We laugh about it now but it was stressful at the time! Now I have a permanent reminder...

The blip photo is one I took of the cartoon. Cardiff Castle is a favourite place of mine where I love taking photo's. I hope you like the cartoon of me as much as I do. I'm the star!