And Another Thing!

(Part Two)

And even if that blonde bugger had given me one thought on my 17th birthday, it was still the shittiest birthday I ever had!  That, and my forty-first!

After sitting through a double session of English Literature, I went home expecting at least a cake or something.  Well, that happened, didn't it!  My Brother and his family, as usual, were sitting around talking about some crap or other, while I sat there completely ignored. 

My mum, sent my little neice over to say Happy Birthday, but not one word from anyone else.  Despite my brother leaving home about two years ago, it was always all about him. 

And presents?  Don't make me laugh!  My mum and dad gave me ten pounds - an awful lot in those days - and my gran sent me some April Violets bath cubes, and a Friendship Book.  A bit like the People's Friend, only loads of poems and shit! 

Didn't even get a decent dinner that day!
And as I said before, I ended up going to bed in tears, having seen the blonde offender that night.

And don't get me started on my forty-first....!

Why do you always remember the crappiest birthdays.  Never the happy and wonderful ones?  It's like when the most miserable of Christmases stand out, making the golden ones pale.

Anyway, while we're on the subject, all my childhood birthdays were shit.  Except when I was ten, and I bought myself a Beezer Annual with my birthday money (my special day being so very near Christmas and that). 

Otherwise, every year, my brother would buy me this revolting pink gloop that you were, allegedlly supposed to make stuff with .  A kind of looser playdough.  All it did was get in my fingernails, and make my hands stink for days.

And my Gran, every year, sent me a toy post office or sweet shop, which once I ate the tiny sweets inside and was sick, instantly lost it's appeal. 

The only highlight was getting egg and chips and birthday cake off my mum. After coming home alone from school in the dark.  Birthday parties were rare then.  And you had to have friends in the first place.  

 But when you shed these grim childhood years, you expect something a bit better really. 

Phew!  Quite grateful that my next birthday is 9 months away!