Birthdays

Remembering birthdays has always caused me some difficulties, and on occasion my indifferent memory has inevitably been the cause of some acute embarrassment and even guilt-ridden shame. My late wife Doris fortunately always kept a book in which she carefully listed all the birthdays. Every grandchild, son, family relation and close friend appeared in that book. Indeed the book has proved to be just the idiot's guide that I needed for remembering birthdays. So much so that I have been able to put it to good use over the past year and gain much kudos through it as someone who does not forget birthdays. Family members and friends have been genuinely pleased at of my thoughtfulness in remembering their birthdays and I have been basking inwardly in the feeling of warm glow that their expressions of appreciation have engendered. Yet last week, despite all the help available from the "birthday book" , I nearly slipped up with the date of our great-grand-daughter Jessica's birthday. Having got Jessica's birthday card ready, I phoned our grand-daughter Shelby on the Thursday of the week before last, to announce that I was going to take the card over to them, adding smugly that I knew Jessica's birthday was on the Friday and I did not want to miss it. To which Shelby informed me, rather deflatingly for my ego, that Jessica's birthday was actually that Thursday rather than the Friday. Squirming with embarrassment, I blurted out that I had got the date from Nan's birthday book and never imagined it would be wrong , but Shelby knew exactly why I had got it wrong. Apparently, she had had a conversation every year with Nan about the date of Jessica's birthday and every year she had had to remind her that it was the 25th of August and not the 26th. Quite clearly Shelby's reminders had gone unheeded and Nan's birthday book had remained steadfastly unaltered as far as Jessica's birthday was concerned. It was of course all my own fault. I should have expected something that, - after all these are the endearing ways of grandmothers that make them so lovable.