Last week I started reading Tove Jansson’s “Travelling Light” while on the Northstar Line between Big Lake and Minneapolis. One paragraph reminded me so much of our Ms Osborne that I couldn’t help but laugh maniacally.
“Dear child, make sure you bring your young man so I can have a look at him, but don’t go buying some expensive and unnecessary gift. At my age, I’ve got pretty much everything I want, plus better taste than most of my progeny. And I don’t want to leave a load of rubbish for others to clean after I’m gone. Just pick out something simple and affectionate. And don’t go bring art into it — you’ll only mess it up”.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Chris how wickedly accurate.
Dammit, I had that conversation with the boy when he was 8 years old!
God, how I detest junk.
He was restricted to Floris products, only in ‘Edwardian Bouquet’ perfume.
Badedas bath juice.
White flowers.
Cheeses and wines when he was older!
He nearly always made the most beautiful hand made cards for me. I have them all still.
I lay odds he was the only ten year old with an account at Floris. How funny. I still have boxes of the stuff 5 years after he has gone.
I think it may be hereditary, my mother was the same.
Thank you for sharing the laugh.
Isn’t it bizarre how well one gets to know people one has never met?
He always bought the acceptable girlfriends to visit, the others of which there were a few he used to tell me that they were unsuitable! (For what one never liked to ask!) They never lasted more than a couple of weeks, thank God! Unsuitable was one of his favourite words. It was always used for films that he knew I wouldn’t like, so I never watched them, he had the knack of being spot on every time. Considering how ultimately wild he was, he could be so prim. I remember when the Moscow tourist organisation had to haul him out of a Moscow brothel with two girls, getting dressed on the way to the airport because he was about to miss his flight to Dagestan. Shows they know where just everybody is! I gather the three day visit to Moscow never got any further than the brothel and they didn’t give him the bill! Must have been very good fun for all concerned! He did tell me himself but I had already had a call from Moscow about it. Ooops!
Wonderful!