Here we go!

I had a fantastic birthday yesterday. My daughter took me out for lunch (her Dad came too) at a very nice Italian restaurant. I resisted the pizza (trying not to eat too much wheat these days) and chose a chicken dish, which was beautifully cooked and not too filling, leaving room for dessert. I hardly ever eat dessert but I decided I was going to celebrate and chose something I wouldn't normally have - a tart with figs and plums, which looked like the kind of thing which would send Greg into raptures on Masterchef (if you want to win, just cook Greg a dessert with figs in).

I had a glass of prosecco as I wanted my day to sparkle, and feeling very wicked, chose a liqueur coffee to finish - maybe I wouldn't have done if I'd known they were going to bring me a free Birthday Prosecco as well! It made for a very merry walk round the shops afterwards...

I had all kinds of cards and messages from people. Even though the weekend/Bank Holiday combo had done its worst and delayed a few cards, there are plenty on my mantelpiece, and some to look forward to. We arrived home to friends on the doorstep and yet more cards and flowers. It was a really lovely day!

Today I'm going into town to soak up a bit of Bank Holiday atmosphere before revving up for the return to work later this week. :)

Almost there!

Tomorrow's my birthday! I still get ridiculously excited about birthdays... I've never really known why, but I suspect it's something to do with being frequently told as a little girl about my very dangerous birth which 'almost killed' my mother and me. (I was placenta praevia - the minute birth began, my life support system was gone and my mother was bleeding to death. Luckily she was in the operating theatre so an emergency C-section saved our lives).

Birthdays were always a bit of a strange time for me, with Mum recalling the birth story in very dramatic fashion. In some way she blamed me for her ill-health afterwards, and we never really bonded as I would have liked. I think for me, a birthday was a day which had the potential for that magical, story-book Mummy to appear. In fact, I got a bit of a self-pitying thing about them as the day itself was very often either on August Bank Holiday or the Sunday and so cards would rarely arrive on time. For some reason this mattered terribly to me; I took it as a personal slight.

However, these days I just love being around to celebrate Life. Cards are a bonus. And I still get that little-girl excitement about my birthday... Tomorrow I'll tell you how it went!

Countdown to Fifty!

This blog is my birthday present to myself. My 49th birthday is in two days' time, and I am really excited about starting my fiftieth year on the planet! So far, each year has been better than the last. I realise there may be a tipping-point sometime in the future, but - so far, so good.

Many people are so afraid of the ageing process; yet it's the one thing we can't prevent in life. I look 'young for my age' - even at 48 I only have a very few silver hairs... but in a decade I shall probably look much older than many of my peers as the plastic surgery culture eats into our self-respect and feeds our adulation of youth.

I wanted to make my voice heard in favour of embracing the ageing process. Just to be clear, I don't consider 50 old at all . I'm the youngest of four, all of whom are outrageously young for their age as well, and the oldest woman I ever knew was 107, which puts it all into perspective, don't you think?

I'm reading a lot about the Law of Attraction at the moment. It's a theme I shall return to, but for now I shall content myself with shouting out to cyberspace, "THIS IS GOING TO BE A WONDERFUL YEAR!!!!!!"

Hope yours is too, do follow me through the next twelve months and see how it goes! :)