In the pink

I attained State Pension age today - which is at least better than never attaining it - and despite an ongoing sense of bewilderment at finding myself as old as this, when in my head I'm still only forty-something, I had a pretty thoroughly splendid birthday. If you're one of the people who kindly sent me good wishes on line, I thank you - though you won't be surprised to hear that your greetings were rather trumped by those of the Boy Wonder, who came out with his mother to meet R and me when we arrived in Cardiff, and walked down the pavement towards us singing "Happy Birthday to You." There was barely a dry eye in the street.

B and L had just been out for breakfast, and when I asked him what he'd had, he said "Pancakes!" "And bacon," said L. "And bacon," agreed the Boy. "I had pancakes and bacon. And what is that orange fing called?" "Smoked salmon," said L, rolling her eyes at me. "Yes, it is," said the Boy. "I had pancakes and bacon and smoked salmon." Very nice too - and it wasn't even his birthday.

The day continued in this vein, with the Boy Wonder at his exuberant and charming best. He kindly unwrapped my birthday present for me, and was then fascinated to watch me pushing the hooks of a pair of beautiful silver dragon fly earrings through my ear lobes. "Does it hurt?" he enquired. I explained that the holes in my lobes had been made in a jewellery shop a very long time ago, and that it had hurt at the time, but didn't hurt now, as long as no-one pulled on my earrings. "How did the people makes the holes?" was the next question. "Do you know what a stapler is?" "Yes," he said. "Well, they use a thing that's a bit like a stapler." Looking into the saucer eyes, I added, "But it's not an ordinary stapler, it's a special one. You mustn't ever use an ordinary stapler on someone." "No," he agreed, shaking his head vehemently. I then told him about his mother piercing her own ears at the age of seven, and how much trouble she'd got into for doing it, and he agreed that this was extremely naughty behaviour, because "Small children aren't allowed to have holes in their ears. And babies can't do it, eiver, can they? Only big children and grown ups can do that." When I related all of this to L, she rolled her eyes again and said, "Why would you tell him about that? I hope you haven't given him Any Ideas." To which I might have replied, but didn't, that if he takes after her (which he does), he'll have plenty of Ideas of his own, and nipping a few of them in the bud before they take root might not be a bad thing.

A little later B decided that he wanted R to read We're Going on a Bear Hunt to him, but they couldn't find the book. "Is it in your bedroom?" said R. "We'll go and see," said B, setting off up the stairs. "May I come too?" I said. "Yes, you can," said B kindly. "I will show you the way." But the book wasn't in his bedroom. "It has gone up in a puff of smoke," said the Boy sadly, reducing R and me to silent hysterics. Luckily it turned up shortly afterwards in another bedroom, where I'd sent him to look because we'd checked pretty much everywhere else. "I found it!!" he said. "Yay!" Given that he was recently taken to, and evidently very taken with, a magic show, I'm surprised he didn't say "A! Bra! Adabra!" and whisk it out from behind his back.

Leaving the park this afternoon, B suddenly said to me, "Are you wearing pink boots today?" I looked down and realised that my old brown walking boots were catching this pink sunset light, so we had a bit of a chat about colour balance, before moving on to an in-depth discussion of boots - good, bad, new, old, broken and otherwise. It was all very amusing, and very B, but if I hold onto just one memory of the day I'd like it to be the moment when he said to me, quite out of the blue, "I am going to stand up now, and give you a GORGEOUS cuddle!" And did.