Let’s do this together

YOUR

The Dark Lord’s been a bit teenagery and glum recently so I’ve been texting her photos of herself from the family album when she was young and carefree and didn’t hate me.

I chose a snap of us in Paris when she was seven years old, and sent it with the caption: “Happiness is going all the way to Paris to buy a mad starey-eye Beanie Boo in a shop halfway up the Eiffel Tower.”

She sent me a message: “Hmmm. If I remember you almost passed out from fright when we got in the wrong lift and ended up at the top of the tower by accident.”

I replied: “Ah yes. I’d forgotten that. OK, scrub Paris. How about this one? Happiness is pink sand between your toes on a beach in Crete when you were 10 years old.”

She messaged me back: “Yes, apart from the near-death experience when you drove through the mountains in your sunglasses because you’d forgotten your normal specs. In. The. Dark.”

I wrote back: “I sense you’ve not entirely forgiven me for that. OK. We’ll move on. Happiness is a Halloween party aged six with Mummy dressed as a skeleton. That was great fun, wasn’t it?”

I could hear her snort with derision in the next room, and her reply arrived: “Didn’t you set off indoor fireworks in the fireplace and almost blind Gabriel while telling the horrifying story of the Hairy Toe?”

I laughed: “Gosh you have a very good memory. Luckily he healed quickly. Do you also remember when I set up apple bobbing outside in a huge plastic barrel, and that idiot boy almost drowned?” She replied: “Oh yes. That was Gabriel too.” I typed back: “Well, I hope he’s not coming to your party this Saturday. I can’t afford the public indemnity insurance.”

She mailed: “Meant to say, I’m going round to Eva’s instead for Halloween.”

I looked at Boris, who is now more child to me than my own offspring, and said: “Extra spooky hot dogs for us then, Boz.”

And her final crushing message dropped in. “And I’m taking the hot dogs with me.”

Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.