Her 58th Valentine card

This is the Valentine card that my father painted for my mother today. It's the latest in a series that goes back to 1955. He missed just one year, some time in the early 1970s.

In 1955 my mother was a 15 year-old school girl boarding at a convent. What my father didn't know when he innocently posted his anonymous card to my mother was that the nuns opened all the mail that came to the school. When the head mistress learnt what had arrived in the post for one of her pupils, she summoned her young charge to her office.

The head mistress asked solemnly "Marianne, what's this?"

My mother was dumbstruck. She had no idea what it was. She wasn't expecting any post.

Then the head mistress passed over the opened envelope and my mother saw a card all decorated in big, pink, fleshy hearts. She didn't know who it was from, nor what to say. Taken completely by surprise she looked up at the head mistress, who was smiling.

No exercise today: I took it easy on account of my cold.