I have just switched my computer on to discover a reminder in the corner telling me that today is my 56th birthday, in case I had forgotten.
I hadn’t forgotten, although it has been quiet rather than thrillingly celebratory.
It has been a contented sort of day. Of course we collected Oliver last night, and birthday or not, today has had to be spent chugging down the endless road between Gordonstoun and here.
We slept at Bruar last night, and bought some smoked prawns this morning. We ambled around the shop for a little while, looking with interest at fudge and biscuits made irresistible by the addition of a beautiful tin, and at chocolate shaped like strawberries and wrapped in ribbon. We bought some fudge ourselves on our last visit, which we ate almost immediately, almost before we were out of the driveway. Afterwards we filled the tin with our own very much nicer home-made fudge, which, being more solid and satisfying, is lasting for ages.
We contemplated the phenomenon of being in a shop trying to purchase a beautiful life, before going back to the camper van where we already had a perfectly beautiful life of our own, with fudge and biscuits and smoked prawns and chocolate, which although it was only shaped like chocolate, tasted splendid anyway.
Mark added to the loveliness by giving me a birthday card with a robin on the front, which sang like a robin when I opened it. I liked this very much, and opened and closed it several times, until Mark pointed out that there was a very upset robin outside, shouting threatening avian-obscenities at the intruder.
I am sorry to say that I did not put the card away straight away, as I should have, but opened and closed it several more times, so that I could hear the real robin getting in a tizz, which made me laugh. I am unkinder than I like to think sometimes.
Obviously in the end I put the card away, and the real robin considered itself victorious and flew off, so all was well that ended well, and we set off.
It is a long and wearisome drive home, and I confess that I nodded off during some of it, when even the excitement of listening to The Hobbit and also knitting was just not thrilling enough to keep me awake.
It was evening before we got home, and we raced around for ages, unloading Oliver’s fourteen tonnes of luggage out of the camper van and piling washing into the machine, and hurtling round trying to get ready for work, until in the end Mark said that enough was enough, and we would just give up and go to work tomorrow instead.
This was both unforgivably idle and a massive relief.
Instead of going to work, we had a cup of tea in the conservatory, and I opened the rest of my birthday cards, which had been waiting for me at home, and which were both lovely and insulting in roughly equal quantities.
I did not believe the lovely ones, and laughed at the insulting ones, and felt happy with my lot.
The one from my parents included an invitation to avail myself of something called a Relax Package at a salon in Bowness. I do not know what a Relax Package is, but it looked very promising from the card, which was in stylish tones of beige with expensive writing, and when I looked it up on the mighty Internet, had a photograph of model-like sophisticates looking relaxed. I do not know where they found them, they are certainly not from Bowness, the other taxi drivers would have been eternally hanging about outside the salon offering free taxis to relaxing packaged people.
I am looking forward to that. It will be nice to be relaxed.
It was a good thing we had not gone to work really, because after that the phone rang constantly. Number Two Daughter called from Canada, and there was even a call from my aunt and uncle in America, which was quite enchanting, how fantastic, that nice things can be said all the way around the world. When we win the lottery we are going to go and see them, the pictures on their Facebook have got sunshine on every single one
In the end Mark said there was no point in trying to organise dinner, and went out to collect a take away, which is one of my favourite things. Oliver suggested a film, and came up with one called Top Gun, which I have not seen before, and which I liked, although it was a story about an arrogant conceited little twerp with an aeroplane, and I could not imagine that the Royal Air Force would have given him house room.
Despite this there is no better end to a day than Special Fried Rice and a film, and a glass of wine to smother my guilt about work.
It has been a nice sort of birthday. We will go back to work tomorrow.
Have another picture of Scotland at night.
