Lucky Snake

I first visited my cousin in Canada about thirty years ago. I was keen to visit the Rockies [watching too many films about the Mounties] and although I'd never met her before, my mother insisted I'd be made welcome - I was "family". And so it proved, I was welcomed as a long lost son, and had a great time visiting the Canadian Rockies and Vancouver, where my cousin lived. She'd gone over as a nurse, in the 1960's I guess, to work for a couple of years - and never came back. We keep in touch occasionally. Even though she's lived over there for fifty odd years, when she returns for the occasional visit it's as if she's never left. Her Welsh accent is much stronger than mine, and I've lived here for ever it seems.

Each Christmas I get a card from her, even though she's now partially sighted; and in the card she puts these beautiful stamps from Canada. The photo is of the stamp that arrived in December 2013, the year of the snake. I've only just noticed that the snake is coiled into a figure of eight, considered a very lucky number by the Chinese I'm told. Story of my life, born lucky. And as the saying goes, It's better to be born lucky than rich - and the older I get the more I realise how true that is.