Perfect

I woke up at 4am sweating and trembling and thought “shit I’m going to be sixty tomorrow!”. No kidding. After nearly 21 months of blagging it and making jokes I suddenly realised it was for real. From there on in the whole day was a bit surreal. I mean, I was really busy at work and it was full on right until I left. In that sense just another day. But I felt on the edge of another life from the moment I opened my eyes. In a good way.

They chucked me an office party at lunchtime. God I love the people I work with. No idea how they put up with me, it was the best sort of occasion just like at Christmas with everyone bringing food to share and my desk decorated with balloons and even a red carpet (which we took up because it was a health and safety hazard, but that’s not the point). I could so feel the love. Really. Actually a bit choked because you never feel worthy at that point. Well I didn’t. But everyone was so sweet even though there is so much pressure on at the moment.

There’s that scene in the film MASH where one of the characters gets sent home from the war unexpectedly, and thats how bad I felt about leaving everyone to do the work whilst I went off and got to celebrate. But we went home and dropped the car and walked into the local bar, and Ben poured me a beer and the boys were there and then - well then The Girl Racer came in with her boyfriend. From Canada. As you do. And I knew in my heart she was going to be there although I was afraid she wasn’t. And then it was all perfect. We drank and we went next door to eat, and I had TSM and all three of my children and it was all absolutely perfect. And when they got tired we made up the bed and got new bedding out and TSM had organised everything brilliantly of course and the cats climbed all over everything and got in the way and -

I wouldn’t swap today for anything.

Perfect. And not even my birthday yet. Today was amazing, but roll on tomorrow. How great is it to be able to say that?...