A-Z Challenge: L - Lizard-Face

L is for Lizard-Face

When my daughter was young and going through the terrible twos, my sister, Sue, used to come round and try and cheer her up by making silly faces. The one that worked every time, without fail, was “lizard-face”. Well, it made me laugh a lot anyway. Then my whole family started doing lizard-faces whenever we wanted to make someone laugh. Now it has become a bit of a family tradition and we do it all the time - forgetting that other people have no idea why we suddenly look like creatures from outer space, while cackling hysterically. Probably not how most people expect a Buddhist nun to behave either, which somehow makes it all the funnier.

What silly tradition does your family have?

Ages ago, I was tagged by Jamara Falconer in the Lucky Seven Meme. It's all about the number 7. The tagged blogger has to turn to page 77 of their WIP, go to line 7 and copy out the next 7 lines, sentences or paragraphs. I think I'm supposed to tag 7 other bloggers, but I honestly don't think anyone would appreciate being tagged during this A-Z Challenge madness.

Sitting on the sofa, I pried the lid off the battered box and looked inside. It was a treasure trove, packed with old birthday cards, Valentine’s cards, Christmas cards and an assortment of letters, all of them from old boyfriends. As I started going through them, I became thoroughly distracted, each one bringing back a different memory – the soppy, puffy Valentine card with roses from a boyfriend from college; the funny, cute one from a boyfriend from school; the jokey wife ones from my ex-husband; one from a boy that I couldn’t even remember. 

But they weren’t what I was looking for.

Eventually, I spied a small blue envelope hidden among the pile of letters and felt a jolt of recognition. It was folded in half, the edges frayed slightly and ‘Claire F’ in tiny blue writing on the front. Opening it up, there was another, similar envelope within and inside that, like a paper Russian doll giving up its secrets, I struck gold - three letters and a photograph.