Birthdays

I love birthdays. Not just mine, everybody's. I think it's such a special day, this day we came screaming into the world.

I can't remember which birthday it was which I missed. It came and went without my realising it. I was somewhere in south west China, on a horse trek, and it was only when we got back to the town that I discovered I'd turned 27 while I was clip clippety clopping with other travellers. I had so much fun on that trek that I realised a birthday doesn't have to be celebrated. Because I 'didn't have' a birthday, I believed I was still 26 for months and months. On my 28th I thought I was 27. The confusion properly ended on my 30th. I had a giant party in an Eritrean restaurant in Oval.

Since then I 'count' all my birthdays. Since being a stigmum there have been birthdays when I've been on my own in the evening. It's fine, I live in Papier Mache Towers, the view is fantastic, so I buy a half bottle of wine, sit in the chair by the window and look at the sky, the clouds, the silhouette of the clock tower, one year the moon hanging just above it.

Then I have a picnic. I invite all who I know even if I haven't seen them for years. Not everyone comes of course, some live too far away, but everyone's invited. This year my birthday was on picnic day. Over the years the people I know who don't know one another have got to know one another. School friends, uni friends, ex work, Camden parents, Kentish Town ones, the lot.That's what I like best about my picnics; getting people together and seeing all the people I really like... dare I say it, all the people I really love.

I love birthdays - Mine, yours, anybody's.