Rabbie Burns, Scotland’s favourite poet once said.

O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us.

To be truthful I hadn’t given much thought to that particular quote until I saw my picture in the Daily Mirror this week.

I thought, “ Did the photographer actually think that I looked like that?” “Is that the best picture out all the ones he took?”

I reasoned to myself that he took the picture just as my face was getting ready to smile. Let’s be honest we all screw our faces up, just prior to the call of “Say cheese”, trying to get that natural look.

I was so concerned about this that I went up into the loft and dug out the old photo albums to check myself out. I found a photo of myself in uniform; it was taken when I was in the Army around 1972. That’s not that long ago. If you count it in Decades it’s only 4.

I checked myself in a mirror against the old army picture, and apart from a few laughter lines around the eyes, and the fact I was wearing a beret in the picture, it could have been my younger brother, if I turned my head to the side and squinted, a lot. I have come to the conclusion that the photographer had his lens slightly out of focus, didn’t shout “Say cheese” at the right time and I was trying extra hard getting my face ready to look natural.

While I was having a recuperative cuppa tea and dunking my ginger snaps I suddenly blurted out. “Is that how other people see me? Always trying to get my face to look natural”

Cyn tried to reassure me by saying that is not how people see me. I don’t fully trust her at the moment as she was the one that suggested that my photo in the Daily Mirror looked like I was trying out for the part of the owner of one of the dogs in the Pedigree® Dentastix® commercial. Jessie seemed to nod her head in agreement with that statement. Man’s best friend indeed!

Just to show you how confident I am; I will let you compare the pictures that Cyn commented on when she rather unkindly mentioned the Dentastix® commercial.