Sunny day in the garden with my laptop and surrounded by flowers I have tended all summer. Ok so it is my birthday and I am not happy about it. Who needs to be, annually, reminded that you are one year older and closer to ‘…knock, knock knocking on Heaven’s door.’  After 35 all birthdays should be ignored and that dreadful question of ‘is this the big one, posed by well-meaning friends confined to the scrap heap of stupidity. Hello, people, after thirty five they are all big ones! Still, I try to get behind it. I try to get into the spirit of it, a spirit generated by my children. I ask a few friends, and I do mean friends, around for a sundowner, wine and a few nibbles. Maybe sit in the garden, watch the sun go down behind the monstrosity of an extension the local council allowed my neighbour to build and cast its long shadow over my life telling me it would ‘… have no impact on my environment.’ I wonder how that deal worked out. Easy to speculate that someone was not on the ball, even easier on my birthday. Moan about that for a bit then break out the ukulele and sing, if I could, a miserable song or two. I find it very difficult to imagine a miserable song on a ukulele but if anyone could do it, I could do it and I could do it with misery on my birthday. May also have a roll-up if the moment is right. My mood deepens. Then, quite suddenly I speculate that God is hacking my computer because a darkened sky wraps itself around me like a cloak and the heavens open tossing down stair rods of rain, making me dash for cover with only the  morning’s newspaper to protect the IT centre of my universe. Not all party darkness though. My long suffering son will be there to patiently answer any IT questions that have arisen since we last met. He is a great support even though, tiring of trying to explain ‘cloud’ to me just saying that I should  think of it as a galaxy far, far away and that is all I needed to know. My lovely daughter will not make party but sent me a card that made me cry. Birthdays, why bother?