I'm alive (and old)

Just in case any of you saw this news item – yes, that is just around the corner from my place, yes, I am still alive, and no, we weren’t evacuated – in fact I had no idea it was even going on (although I did hear what sounded like gunshots around 9.30, but assumed it was just someone letting off fireworks – gunshots not being the normal soundtrack for this usually very safe neighbourhood). Big dramas for our little suburb!

Apart from being alive, I’m also now 40. I decided the only possible way to celebrate was to ignore my actual birthday and instead have an “I’m still in my 30s” party yesterday. It went really well – I spent all of Saturday baking, so we had vast amounts of food (way too much, actually, but I wasn’t sure how many people would turn up, and as I’d given a general invitation to everyone in my department at work, the numbers could have got very large!), and I’d made the invitation very vague and casual, to pop in any time in the afternoon for drinks and not-birthday cake, so we had people coming and going all day.

It was a really good mix of people, too – work people, bookcrossers, and other friends. I think we must have had about 20 people turn up in total – luckily not all at once, or they wouldn’t have all fitted into the house! Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, anyway. But I’ve promised MrPloppy I won’t have another birthday party for at least 10 years… 🙂

And today I’m planning on having an utterly lazy birthday day (of course I’ve got the day off work – I never work on my birthday!), eating leftovers (see above – I kind of over-estimated the amount of food) and watching the DVD of Cosmos MrPloppy got me – the bestest bestest birthday present ever!

I like this being old thing 🙂