Putting a positive spin on my plates

LAST December, I was looking for something special to buy my daughter Jane for Christmas and by chance found two lovely plates in the boot of my car. They had pictures of World War II planes on them and looked very expensive. I seemed to remember I had bought them from a charity shop earlier in the year. I decided to wrap the plates in nice festive paper and give them to Jane. On Christmas Day I stood next to Jane as she unwrapped the gift, but instead of looking delighted as I had expected, she burst out laughing. In between further bouts of laughter, she told me she and and her husband Keith had taken the plates to the charity shop because they were fed-up with looking at them. For the rest of Christmas Day the family kept bursting into laughter at the coincidence of me buying the two plates Jane had — apparently — taken to the same charity shop. In a weird way, it helped to make our Christmas Day a particularly merry one! A few days later I found myself thinking about the plates again — and then the penny dropped: I hadn’t bought them from a charity shop, I’d got them from Jane’s house! I remembered seeing the two plates lying on top of a pile of junk waiting to be taken to the charity shop and had asked Jane if I could have them. Fortunately for me, she had now completely forgotten that she had actually given the plates to me herself! After wondering whether I should come clean and tell Jane the truth, I’ve decided it might be more fun to let her find out by reading it in the Daily Mail — she loves the Peterborough column.

Brian Hanwell, Bedford.