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How To Have A Happy Birthday

10 July 2011

I love birthdays and despite mine often clashing with a Wimbledon final, causing me to be hoofed out into the garden as a kid to give the adults a bit of peace for the tennis, I do like 5th July very much. However, a side effect of that date is I’ve always resented Wimbledon’s looming presence and would confess that I find bouncing a hairy little ball over a net rather dull.

I mean when you have Action Man battles to be fought who would possibly trade that to watch McEnroe beating Borg?

This week I had a birthday and polled many good wishes from all sorts of lovely people. The joy of Twitter and Facebook is that people will stop and say hi, so many thanks for all the kind words folks.

And I had a great day, which comprised:

1. Picnic breakfast
2. Running the r/c boats with the kids before school.
3. Zoo trip with the Twins and their nursery class. (This included spending time with the Mingos and asking Oz to take his hand out of the fish tank, as he couldn’t read the ‘these fish will bite’ sign).
4. Lounging on my new sun lounger. (Not at the zoo, I hasten to add).
5. Reading a bit.
6. Playing bass guitar for a while.
7. Paddling in the sea.
8. Swimming in the sea with all the kids.
9. Sherry.
10. A tasty tea with cake and candles.
11. More sherry.
12. Bit of telly, then happy birthday sleeps.

Now that is a cool birthday. I had some presents as well which I ate, drank, listened to and played with (a tin toy of flying aeroplanes, for example).

So, I am properly birthdayed-out for another year.

Now, if you’re thinking that I’m being a bit self indulgent here – that’s the point! We’re all special lovely people and our birthday is our special day. I’ve not always been able to have the day off work, so this year was better than many, but I always find some things to do that make me smile.

Sadly, I’ve met many people who let their birthday slide by unnoticed, which is a real shame – we all need big birthday strokes.

Therefore, when planning your next birthday, please follow my A-B-C of birthday happiness:

A) Book the day off work.
B) Plan to do at least three things that day that make you smile (they don’t have to be expensive).
C) Look forward to accepting birthday strokes.

I’m 43 now and next year will be just as good, so I can’t wait to be 44! Getting older just means I need a bigger cake to handle the candles! A win! I love cake!

…Oh and Mingos are what Oz calls Flamingos. And a ‘stroke’ is a unit of recognition and we all thrive on these – they’re like soul food.

Happy Birthday to you all!

Tags: How To