Russian Dolls

I spent the day zigzagging around town, scratching things off the many cross-referenced festive to-do lists.
Then home again to cook supper for Molly and I before sitting down late to put the finishing touches to my Christmas Cards.

My father was a rather good watercolourist and calligrapher. Every evening in late November through to about now, I remember, he would sit down creating his lovely festive cards until the early hours, just as I’m doing now.

Today would have been his 108th birthday, bless his gentle soul. This is a photograph taken shortly before he died...that’s his first grand-daughter, Molly, on his knee. Thirty years on, she’s asleep next door.

Now it’s a little after midnight and I run a bath, catch myself in the mirror and there’s Dad, just beyond my eyes....like a Russian doll, skin deep within me.