If you can’t say it - pick it, purchase it, post it.

I HAVE been mooching about Penarth recently on the hunt for birthday cards. September seems in a flurry of celebratory shenanigans amongst my family and friends, and not the least of these milestones, was my dad’s 70th.

I found him a card in Hamptons. I could spend an age in there. It is a treasure trove of goodies, but sooner or later I am always drawn to the cards.

The same can be said when I wander around The Polka Dot Door or bumble around Barnums (literally, I recently knocked a display of wooden letters flying all over the floor, on my knees, scrabbling about picking them up, was not one of my most glamorous moments).

The cards I like are those with a witty message, a pithy aside and especially a nugget of inspiration. I can spend as long trying to find the right quote on the right card for a friend or relative as I do over their present.

Maybe it’s the writer in me. I devour words. Relish syllables. Applaud alliteration. I delight in metaphor, simile and onomatopoeia – the joy, how many other words end in four vowels? But, I enjoy a good card for the sentiment and emotion, thought and feeling not just as an exercise in wordsmithery.

Above my writing desk, I have a card that reads, ‘She decided to start living the life she imagined’. I have no idea who to credit with these words but to whoever first said them, I thank you. As I open an editor’s rejection email they comfort me and they make me smile when I receive an acceptance of a submission. They vindicate me, they comfort me, and they inspire me.

My dad isn’t like my granda was at 70. He wore knitted tank tops, brylcream through his smart, slicked back hair and always put a blazer on to go out for a newspaper. He gave me black bullets on our walks around the old road and told me tales of adventure from the War that made every day sound like a jolly from a Boys Own annual.

My Dad wears trainers and has a shaved head. He’s cheeky, opinionated, good fun and occasionally infuriating. But like my granda, he’s devoted to his family and passionate about education. He used to save the cream at the top of the milk bottle for me, taught me to play chess and swim and makes the best bacon sandwiches – fact.

Sometimes quotes on cards can be trite. They can make you cringe. But when thoughtfully chosen and graciously given, a quote on a card can express to those we love just how much we care, even if we can’t or don’t verbalise it we can still say it.

For my dad I picked one about a dad being a daughter’s first love. I’m lucky that I can say it to him, but for those that for whatever reason can’t, before it’s too late, there’ll be a card that can.