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| Wearing my new hat. Water color by Brigid of the Devon beach on the wall behind. |
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| Birthday wishes from the florist in Vero Beach. |
Alice also bought some flowers from Artistic Florist and they had a birthday wish on the sign out front of 805 20th Street in Vero Beach.
First thing, Alice read out to me a poem from my nephew Dr Chris Oakley, who studied physics at both Oxford and Cambridge:
Poem for John's 75th Birthday
by Chris Oakley
I can't believe he's seventy five:
A lot of time to be alive!
His humour, charm and sense of fun.
Are recognised by everyone.
His friendly style is never brash -
A useful thing, when raising cash!
And never once have Oxford's sons
Complained about the flow of funds.
For once the College were caught short
With but a thousand crates of port
And mis'rable non-nutritious scraps
All they had to feed their chaps;
Yet tho' they scarce could students feed,
They were too proud to voice their need!
Unasked then John did find a role
Of holding out the begging bowl,
And thus a flow of cash began:
A new, updated Marshall Plan.
He's now retired, but busy keeps
On lit'rary jobs, while others sleep;
His mother's books are one of these:
When these are sold, he's more than pleased!
And then there's William Hartman Woodin
The treas'ry man who helped to put in
Financial rules and checks and caps
To save the country from collapse.
To find new tasks for him is key:
A recent one is heraldry -
A thrilling thing to be exploring
(And never, ever, ever boring)
It has a set of arcane rules
With rampant lions, vair and gules,
There's bezants azure, or or vert:
Plenty there to keep alert.
The first "or" by the way means gold.
And is no typo - or so I'm told.
So let us raise the birthday glass -
May many more yet come to pass!
