18/09/2009

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The Gifted One

When I was a child all my father ever wanted on his birthday was a present I had made. As a vessel of true love, nothing should equal a homemade present. And indeed I found myself telling my own five year old daughter how much I would rather she paint me a picture for my birthday, than cadge some money from her father for a pink plastic watch she had spotted in a local toyshop that she thought might suit me (her).
So why was it that, as the big day loomed, my heart sank when Tom told me he had made me a present. “It‘s taken me a lot of time,” he said, adding to my sense of foreboding.
Nobody over the age of 15 should give homemade gifts. Labours of love I have received in the past have included a box of mint cremes, that tasted, from the tiny nibble I had before binning them, like toothpaste coated with wax, and bubble bath so frightening-looking you would rather jump into a vat of weedkiller. And then there was the green knitted mohair hat and matching belt that itched. Until I go and live in Knightsbridge, when I suspect I will crave a jumper spun out of badger hair to remind me of the countryside, a present, is glossy, new and slightly mysterious, borne from the magical world of shiny shops and polished interiors. Not, as I discovered on the morning of my birthday yesterday, something you have seen lying around your house, for five years.
Still, as prints of hares go, it is a nice one, and now sits resplendent on one of the only havens hitherto free of Tom’s art work, on the wall beside our bed. As time goes on it will no doubt become my favourite present of all time, particularly if he becomes extremely famous. But in the mean time I can’t stop mourning the finely tooled polycarbonate and rubber shell that I wanted to carry my phone around in.





 

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