A home made birthday card

....and another...and another.
It was the Senior Cat's 95th birthday yesterday. I lost count of how many times the phone rang. He enjoyed the phone calls from family - and heard from every one of his immediate family - and from friends.
He also got some cards. Some were the usual commercial cards - all of them nice.  And there were three home made cards. 
One came from our friends M...and P... who are keen photographers. M... makes simple cards - just a folded piece of card with a photograph on the outside. The photographs are always lovely and thoughtfully chosen.
Another came from our friend P... who makes the most beautiful cards. They are professional and exquisitely well made. The Senior Cat has kept all the cards she has ever made for him. He's not really inclined to keep things like cards so these really do mean a lot to him. The verses are always thoughtfully chosen. The designs are simple but elegant. He gets great pleasure from them.
And then there was T...'s card. T... is four and lives across the road. He found out it was the Senior Cat's birthday early in the morning before he went off to "kindy" and, once there, he made a "card". 
It's a simple thing too. It consists of nothing more than stripes of brightly coloured paint down a large sheet of paper.
But, those stripes are carefully done, very carefully done indeed. I can see T... standing there at the easel. He would have been concentrating very hard indeed. The decision as to which colour had to go first and where it would go had to be made...and then more decisions made for each stripe after that. He was also very, very careful to make sure that the stripes did not run into each other.
The result is neat and skillful. 
When he first brought it over in the middle of the afternoon the Senior Cat was out for a short while with Middle Cat. T... was very disappointed. I had to give him a hug and negotiate an agreement that he could come back later.
And back he came. The Senior Cat said all the right things and we  have stuck the "card" to the sliding door - for now. T...helped me with the sticking of it as well. 
As we were doing it he gave me a little smile and that look which says everything about being properly thanked by the recipient. It's so important to be thanked, especially when you are small.