hippo birdy

Of course it’s Himself’s birthday this week and I don’t have anything as exciting to give him as a balloon flight; although he is attending mine as ‘guest’, so that sort of counts. I’ve got the usual socks, tie, shirt. Toblerone, a rather natty jacket, a book about 1000 places to see before you die, a chocolate lolly in the shape of a heart, but nothing outstanding or original.

One year (2005) we spent his birthday in New York. I knew it was going to be cold (and it was – I have never been so cold – I am never, ever going back to New York in February*) so I bought him some long-johns as a kind of joke (but with a hint of usefulness). As his birthday is next to Valentine’s it’s always easy to get things with a ‘romantic’ bent, and I found these wonderful black knitted jersey silk long-johns (may have been pj bottoms, who knows) that had ‘Love God’ nattily embroidered in red in complete bad taste across the crotch. Truly wonderful in their naffness but I thought he might like the compliment. I also bought him a book which I wrapped inside them.

Come the morning of his birthday and we’re in bed in our hotel, he rips off the paper. The long-johns present face up with the ‘Love God’ prominent and readable. He looks carefully at it and turns to me his face aghast holding the package at arms length.

“Have you taken complete leave of your senses” he yells.

I, in my turn, looked aghast,

“Well” I say “I know they’re naff but I thought they were funny!, What’s the matter with you?!”

He looks again. He unrolls them and looks at the book. I can’t remember what it was called but it was about a man who read the complete Encyclopaedia Britannica (??), it had a good review and was also supposed to be humorous (I read it later and it was). He heaves a sigh of relief, blinks a couple of times and turns to me, grinning sheepishly.

“Thank christ for that” he said, “For a ghastly minute I thought you’d caught religion.”

* guess where we’re going on Sunday?