Mi bebé tiene treinta años hoy.

Unbelievably, my youngest baby is 30 today. He has changed a lot since his earliest picture on blip, when his big sis treated him to a wonderful surprise for his 21st birthday. This year his siblings surpassed themselves: we all contributed photos and clips of him from earliest days to present, and #1S spent time while isolated at home with covid, melding them into a wonderful 7-minute video, starting with a soundtrack of his favourite Beatle song (link below). This was sent to his fiancee to play to him this morning, and he's on record as being totally overwhelmed and delighted: tears were shed. What he didn't know was that there was a much bigger surprise in store.
His sisters and his partner had liaised to organise a birthday meal with friends in the evening in Dubai (they both work as teachers in Abu Dhabi), and #1D, #2D, partners and #1GS secretly flew out from Manchester last night for a week's stay. With zero sleep they turned up at the meal, #2D going up to a rather drunk #2S wearing a mask to ask for his drinks order! He started giving the order until she lowered the mask and even then he didn't immediately twig what was going on until she said his name! There was much hugging and crying until a second "waitress" came to take the order - it was #1D! By this time he was a total wreck and was so overcome he could hardly speak. I know all this because the whole thing was captured on a phone and shared soon after.
My only input was a shedload of photos and trying not to give the game away when he video called twice last week. And giving birth to 4 wonderful people of course, of whom I'm so proud.
After watching all the excitement I wanted to get a cake to put a candle in to celebrate, so nipped out to Lidl in the dark and could only find a heart-shaped jam doughnut, which did go down nicely with a cup of black coffee once I'd blipped it.

In my life.
There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all
But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more