Easily pleased

It was my birthday yesterday. Now this may be really childish and I'm sure at 37 it's about time I grew up, but I love my birthday. I'm not sure I like being 37, even though I don't feel much different from when I was 30 or 20 - okay, I'm a bit wiser, have been through a bit more, but I feel basically the same person as I was when I was 20. It's just the number that bothers me.
Anyway, that doesn't stop me being excited about my birthday. For about a week beforehand I will say to the children: whose birthday is it this week? I wake up in the morning and think 'there's something fun happening this morning' and then I remember: o yes, it's my birthday! I love getting cards. I love coffee and cake. And yes, I love getting presents. (I probably enjoy giving presents more, but that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy getting them).

Yesterday was the first day that we were all off to work or school for the first time in a week. I. and N. were feeling well enough to go back to school, leaving me free to go to the office for the first time in 6 weeks. It was great seeing the girls from the department, even though S. was in Holland, but I'll see her next week when we get together for a combined pre-Christmas treat/thank you from me for their support these past few weeks. The girls are always very good at choosing presents that you really like getting. This year was no exception:



I had had the knitting book from the library and told N. from work about it, but in the end it went back unused through lack of time. This was several months ago, but they'd obviously remembered and now it's mine. I want to make almost every single scarf and hat in there. If handknit items are not your thing, don't tell me when your birthday is.

In the evening I drove to B.'s house. When we'd been out for a Japanese meal for his birthday back in September, we had scallops in lemony butter. I'd enjoyed those so much that I said 'I want scallops cooked on your new Aga for my birthday'. The Aga had been partially installed a few weeks ago, but yesterday they came to finish it and lit it around lunchtime. It takes quite a while to heat up, but the top plates were hot enough to cook on. So we had prawns, scallops, potatoes and spinach.

O and a great bottle of bubbly white wine. I rang dad halfway through the bottle and he promptly emailed me with the heading 'you drunkard' ;-) (I wasn't drunk, just relaxed!)

Today I had N. and I. with me. We went to an eerily quiet park. Okay, maybe in this cold and with only ten days to go till Christmas, visiting the park is not high on people's lists. It was a watery cold day but with some sunshine peeping through, which made for some lovely photographs.


I hadn't had the chance to really celebrate my birthday with the kids yet, so what better excuse did we need to go and warm up in Starbucks? Tough choice between gingerbread and eggnog latte, the eggnog won. Yum.

Tonight I'm still getting some presents from B. A birthday is even better if you manage to spread it out over two days. And I suppose as I'm pretty good at playing an adult the rest of the year, I can be forgiven for being a bit childish about my birthday...