Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

There is something alarming, I find, about seeing a photograph of myself. So much so, that I am not very keen on being in front of the camera, much preferring to be squinting at the LCD screen myself. This camera-shyness is probably a result of misplaced vanity because, for some peculiar reason, the pictures that come out of cameras are never the same as the picture that I see in the bathroom mirror every morning. I know all those cameras are conspiring against me to produce pictures that show me looking much older than I really am. It is the reflection in my bathroom mirror, a reflection of a much younger man, that is the true picture. Or so I thought until yesterday.

Yesterday provided a very pleasant interlude. I had, a couple of weeks back, received an email from a cousin who lives in Rome. He was, he told me, in London for a while and wanted to pass on some books which, during several years in his youth, he had been given as Christmas presents from my parents. He and his wife are selling their large house in Rome and downsizing to a flat so he is having to thin out his possessions. I was happy to accept the books, some of which are now collectors' items, for sale at our Lions book fair. Anyway, D was to visit yesterday and we enjoyed a very pleasant pub lunch catching up on all the news.

I'm drifting off the subject, aren't I? Sorry about that.

I met D at the railway station and scarcely recognised him as he is much older than I had expected. This, perhaps, is not surprising. It is several years since we last met and it was the image of him as he was then that I had in my mind. Doubtless I had aged against the picture he had on me. D is just 18 months younger than I am so we are both nearer to 70 than 60 and really I should expect to be looking more like an old man. But why is it that photographs show me so much older than does my bathroom mirror?

Just a sort of afterthought. My cousin D has a claim to fame. He is a journalist and a published author, one of his books being about a well-known Italian gentleman. Said signor sued D for libel and lost the case but he is appealing to a higher court. Although D was awarded costs, the amount awarded by the court was several thousand euros less than his actual costs. Goodness knows what the appeal will set him back.