Gorgeous George

George is not my godson. But he really should be.

When his Mother and I were pregnant and due to give birth within weeks of each other she very gently explained that as I was having a baby so close in age to hers that perhaps I would be too distracted to be a proper godmother to her boy. I was not at all pleased with this news. I have over the years done everything I can to prove her wrong. When George and Isabella were infants we all pretty much lived together on my friends country estate. Isabella and I would stay while the men folk went off to London to work. They come back to us at the end of the week. I would send my friend off to ride her precious horse and then I would have the two babes to myself for several hours. George was a very anxious little baby. I would swaddle him with in an inch of his life and set Isabella and he on the sofa side by side like little bowling pins and read to them for hours. George would fix his bright blue eyes on Isabella and coo and smile. It was so precious. In the evening I would give them both baby massages with sweet almond oil. He would be so relaxed he was positively limp.

When the kids were toddlers and up until they were about ten we would spend two weeks all together in Cornwall during the summer holidays. Every evening I would sit quietly on the sofa and wait for George to prop his fetid scabby feet into my lap so I could gently prise loose the splinters imbedded in his leathery soles. He would tell me all his worries and talk about his anger and sometimes he would tell me he felt so much better.

I have always made it clear to George that if he has anything to discuss he could do it with the knowledge that it would never be repeated. This has not always been easy and has caused me a lot of anxiety at times. There is a tremendous amount of temptation in George's gorgeous life.

When George modelled for me last I told him that I would only be five minutes and then he could go back to his friends. 'You are my friend Juliana, you should have been my Godmother." That's just what I was waiting for.