Thursday, July 26, 2007
550: So Lucky!
Count Mortimer gushes
A very special year for me: I turned seventy-seven years old! The entire family gathered at the family seat of Durnford for a party: my sons Elliott (with his son and new wife!) and Orestes, my daughters Anabel and Clarissa, my son-in-law Roderick and their children, daughter Oriana and her husband and three daughters, nephew Clarian and niece Emma with their families, my great-niece Brienne, Leodigrance the Lesser and his son by my granddaughter Rosemeade, Altis of Bedegraine and the children (you know, my granddaughter Zenobia's husband and children). Plus well-wishers Bellengere, Griflet, Bors, Lady Cleena...there must have been fifty, sixty guests all told. Baker Tom, from Winterhaven Stoke, made the most marvelous cake in the shape of Silchester's keep. We had a great time dismantling it, especially the ladies and young ones!
Do you know, I've had five wives and fifteen children, eight of them sons. I attribute it to my zest for life.
The downside of 77? My arthritis is killing me. I'm okay in the summer, but come fall, when the bad weather sets in, I can barely hobble up and down the stairs, much less ride. The king and queen held Christmas court at the new castle at Sarum this year, and it was all I could do to attend. It took four days of hot compresses and those delicious hot toddies Earl Robert's man makes for me to recover from the journey.
