My husband has a brain like a sieve so I’ve given up on expensive car racing vouchers, or any other experience vouchers. Before that I bought expensive presents, like aftershave, clothes, a briefcase(matching his exact description), etc, all of which weren’t quite right. He carelessly, but gently(if it was made of glass) throw it to one side. Then it would get relegated to one side in the spare room. He acted like a spoilt rotten, ungrateful child.
You probably wonder what I got back. I’d get a hastily written an IOU to take me to X for afternoon tea, so not ‘just for me’, but he quickly ran out of ideas and it became a promised shopping trip. Well that’s tricky as I’m in a wheelchair, and I buy all clothes online. But now it’s a shopping trip every year.
So now I’ve now got into the habit of returning all of his hastily handwritten vouchers(which I’ve religiously kept over all these years) that he’s scribbled to me over all the years back, one per year, adding a post script; return shopping trip, oh that cancels one of my cards out doesn’t it? I’ve only got another 43 left, including a Christmas ones.
You may wonder why the hell I keep old hand written cards? Because over the years I’ve now got my Nan’s last Christmas card, my Sister’s Christmas cards, Grandparents, Great Grandmother, and the corresponding birthday cards. There’s always an odd cheeky comment, joke, or something else that they’ve said that’s been particularly poignant, funny and precious to me. Some have written personal jokes, memories or personal names. None of them though, have ever made excuses or pathetic promises. But they have all, without fail, but with a lot of thought, all have expressed beautiful terms of endearment.
It’s those that I hold most dear.