The Aunts

I have four great aunts. Great as in being the sisters of my grandfather kind of great, although they are great as in "good", also. So there's four of them and they're always referred to collectively as "The Aunts". They're all 6 feet tall and in their sixties or seventies and they're spirited and feisty. They all have big brown eyes that sparkle with mischief and they say Ooooooh! a lot when you see them after a long absence, as if seeing you has made them the happiest old ducks in the world. They grab your face in their hands and give you a peck on the cheek and their skin is soft and papery and they smell like roses and cream. None of them have gone grey at all, some of them have reddish hair like mine. And they're so damn Amazon tall and long and when I see them I can see shades of me and I love seeing where I've come from...

... except when I am sitting in a crowded department store on a Friday night being smothered by the air conditioning with screaming kiddies running round and trying to find a pair of summer shoes. Summer shoes are so sweet and dainty and lovely but every pair of summer shoes makes me look like a cross-dressing lumberjack. I am not six feet tall but I did inherit the size ten feet. So that is when I curse the Amazon genes and The Aunts.