Ashes

Today

Yesterday was Paul's 60th birthday and a day for which he'd been saving a special treat for twenty years. A bottle of Eldridge Pope Hardy's Ale. According to the brewery it can be kept of 25 years.

I wasn't there when the moment occurred. "How was the beer?" I asked Paul. "Flat as a pancake and smelling of old men's socks," he replied.

Not good then.

In My Day

Beatrice was married, at the age of 18. Mamma made her a traditional rich fruit cake in two layers, one for the wedding and one for the first christening. She made the hardest sort of royal icing, designed to last for ever and sealed both cakes. I can't remember what the cake eaten at the wedding tasted like. The other cake was carefully wrapped and put away in a box in one of Mamma's cupboards.

The christening never came round and, after about eight bad years of marriage, Beatrice's decree absolute came through.

The best way to celebrate, we decided, was to eat the christening cake as a divorce cake. Mamma took the cake out of its wrappings, covered it with fresh icing and sent it to us .

With great ceremony this cake was lifted out of its box and cut. We each took a bite. It tasted dreadful; all that lovely fruit had turned into a dry substance that tasted like ash. A fitting metaphor for the marriage, maybe, but no cause for celebration.

This story reminds us that deferred pleasure doesn't always live up to expectations and can turn to ash in our mouths.

At least Paul had a more recently purchased bottle of Hardy's to enjoy,