As I was listening to the weather warnings a couple of weeks ago, and looking for distraction from thoughts of hibernating, I found the quote below. It was not my father who came to mind but my late husband Jack.

I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it’s impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren’t feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. I’ve also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It’s sure to be a phony.  ~ Roald Dahl 

Jack’s eyes twinkled from the moment he woke in the morning, until his head hit the pillow at night. It was impossible to be cross or sad when he was around. It did not matter what I did, be it break a favourite  possession or lose the dining table under a mountain of sewing/craft work, he was patient. If the meal I  made was a disaster, he never complained. His constant mantra at times like these was always accompanied by a twinkling eye smile:

“It is not as bad as a bad marriage!” 

Today would have been his birthday, and as always, I will raise a glass in memory of those twinkling eyes that captured and warmed my heart.