Yesterday was a Big Day.

It wasn’t meant to be but life has a habit of throwing surprises like a sudden downpour on a sunny day.

You see, it was Herself’s [redacted] birthday, but we had decided back on her [redacted] birthday that we wouldn’t bother celebrating birthdays any more. The numbers were just getting too big and depressing.

So I made her her morning mug of tea and wished her a Happy [redacted] Birthday and that was to be the end of it. It was just a matter of acknowledging that I hadn’t forgotten just in case she decided that birthdays were important after all.

It was a lovely day, all warm and sunny and I had to go down to the village. I asked her if she wanted to come. She said she did which surprised me as she hasn’t been to the village since they introduced decimalisation. Well, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it was a long time anyway.

So we sat in the sun outside the coffee shop and enjoyed mugs of coffee and a meal. The staff made a big fuss of her as I think they had assumed by now that I had murdered her years ago and that was why she hadn’t been down. We were joined by a couple of friends and the whole exercise was very French [though we stuck to speaking English out of habit].

I got chatting to the owner at one point and I let slip that Herself was celebrating her birthday.

“How old is she now?” says the owner.

[redacted] says I.

“Wow! We’ll have to make this a bit special so.”

So the next thing, Herself was presented with a cake and candles. Well, it more of a slice of cake with one candle, but [redacted] candles wouldn’t have fitted. Herself was delighted.

Much later we were at home when Daughter arrived with Granddaughter the Younger, Grandson the younger and Farting Dog. The latter flung himself onto Herself’s lap and farted at her. Mayhem ensued. So we had another little party with more food and cake. We left the doors to the garden wide open as it was still very warm and anyway we needed to rid the room of the stench of constant farts.

Things are quieter today. Herself is delighted with the day and the way it turned out. I’m just plain knackered.

She may be older, but I just feel older.