RH MOM – we lost, I think I got a goal, maybe someone else did.

Picture This –

A man, a botanist, a man who has spent his life amongst plants of all varieties. This man finds himself traveling through a desert, for many years, a desert only sparsely populated by withered, dry cacti. A cruel hot wind blew incessantly accross the mans face, burning away any remnants of moisture from his lips. One day, let’s say it’s his birthday, maybe his fortieth birthday, he struggles over an especially high sand dune and in front of him is a forest of unimaginable beauty. A forest full of every plant he has ever seen, all the plants from his memory, and many he has forgotten all layed before him and arranged in such beauty that he almost cannot look at it. This man races down the sand and frolics in the forest, removing his clothes and becoming one with the flora. He spends many days and nights in ecstasy, soaking in the plants, the flowers, the leaves. He discovers that this forest has been planted by his friends, he is lost for words, he cannot believe that his friends would do such a thing and create something of such beauty. After some time his friends return  and ask this man to add to the forest, using only what he has……

This is where I find myself dear Nannas, how can a man, even a captain, write a report when all the reports of a lifetime have been placed before him and presented in all their perfection?

I have received the perfect gift, some say it’s impossible to conceive of the perfect gift, others say you can think such thoughts but never produce such greatness in reality. The Nannas have thought the unthinkable then built the unbuildable. For this I am, and always will be, eternally grateful.

The most beautiful part of the present is that it is only volume one – and five days after presentation the Nannas return to the court and the story continues.

We lost, again, but we ate and drank and abused each other, and that is the true Nanna story.