I have had a nice birthday.
I like getting older very much. It is the fifty second time I have had a birthday, and it was a very happy one. It is lovely not to want anything at all except to be together with my family.
We had an idle coffee in bed this morning, with which Lucy joined in. She gave me a pretty posy of tiny flowers, miniature roses and little leaves, which she had done herself, and which I thought was gorgeous and very clever.
Mark gave me a card with a picture of some flowers, and a message inside it, which was so warm and gentle that I think I might keep it. It is nice to keep a few things like that, because they mean that in years to come occasionally I will be clearing out my underwear drawer and have a pleasingly sentimental moment. I have got a few already, they make throwing old socks away far more interesting.
My sister sent me a card warning me that I was growing up just like my mother, a statement with which I thought my mother would probably disagree.
We had originally planned to wash up and go to Cafe Italia for a pizza and wine for breakfast, but in the event we didn’t.
We had brought home the door cards from the camper van. Door cards, in case you don’t know because of it being a technical term, are the bits of hardboard which make up the inside of the doors.
I took those off yesterday, because they were horrible. Not only were they decorated in the best tasteful nineteen seventies plastic, they were also filthy. I have washed them once during the eleven years that the camper van has been in our possession, and wiped them occasionally. Neither activity ever removed Monsieur Banana Fingers’ oily residue.
Mark stripped the covering off them and threw it away. Then he carefully cut foam into the right shape and stuck that on instead, before covering the whole lot with the last of the brown suede.
We were very pleased with the result. I am very excited about putting them back. I shall paint the doors next week and then the front of the van will be starting to look truly beautiful.
Whilst Mark faffed about blunting my best sewing scissors I made a huge pan of chilli which will last for days. This is a good thing to have because everybody likes it except Oliver, who isn’t here.
After that I made chocolate and cognac biscuits, and coffee and cognac cream chocolates.
We had run out of all of these things, and it is lovely to have them in the fridge for taxi picnics again.
Mark said that I should not be doing house work, because of it being my birthday, but that we ought to go and loaf about eating celebratory pizza and drinking wine in Cafe Italia.
I agreed that this would be nice, but explained that having nice things to eat again would be like having a present every day. It is easy to buy biscuits and chocolate, but the ones in the shops are just not as nice as the ones that we make for ourselves at home. I make chocolates exactly the way we like them, salty and bitter and creamy, and although in emergencies of course we can go to the Co-op and buy Dairy Milk, it is not nearly as happy a thing to have.
In any case there are loads and loads of things that we would like to spend money on if we had got any, and most of them would last longer than the cheerful intoxicated feeling of Cafe Italia.
In the end we had chilli and hot buttery slabs of almond bread and a glass of wine, and then went to bed for a little snooze before work.
It has been a jolly good day.
I have got flowers and home made chocolates and some new door cards for the camper van. Lots of people wrote kind things on my Facebook, and my parents and Numbers One and Two Daughters all rang up to hope that I was enjoying myself, which I was.
My parents sent us some vouchers to have a massage, so there is something nice to look forward to as well.
Life is splendid.
I am going to like being fifty two.
