It’s an anniversary. That comes the same day every year, further and further away from the actual day of birth. And for how many years; how many years are we given? Even when people die, their birthdays continue. And when children arrive, there are even more birthdays and even more people to celebrate with. Friends’ and families’ birthdays add to this until the calendar’s full.
I’ve had a few birthdays beyond The Big One. These kind are too many to count on fingers or have candles on a cake. But I can moreorless tell you which houses they were spent in.
House no.1, my childhood home, I had 35 birthdays in, not counting my 21st when I was away in America.
House 2 was my ‘stepping stone’. My husband-to-be-although-I-didn’t-know-it-at-the-time and I had our first date there.
In house 3, our first proper home together, I celebrated my son’s first birthday and my daughter’s first birthday and so on until I celebrated my 40th. My third child was just 4 months old; I was the same age as my mother was when she’d had me. We hired out a wine cellar at the same hotel as our wedding night.
We stayed in house 4 for seven years, but not long enough to celebrate any significant birthdays.
House 5 saw my son celebrate his 13th and me my 50th. I waited 50 years for my first ever music Festival. We wore wellies. We squelched in the mud like ecstatic Gloucestershire Old Spots. We splashed in puddles. I was finally fabulous at 50! To mark this I’d had grand ideas of a huge party in a sizeable garden. I wanted a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, of course I did, complete with hats and costumes and tablecloth over a neverending table, and champagne and pots of tea and cream and scones.
“Mad Hatter?”
You might well ask. My son had entered, and won, a competition to ‘Alice In Wonderland’ at The Royal Opera House. His winning ticket got us to the ballet a few weeks after the ‘alternative’ play of the same name; I’d been chosen from the audience, to attend The Tea Party on stage, and wear a Mad Hat. And a jacket. So the idea was born.
Some are born Leos, some Aquarians, some in the Year of the Sheep or Goat or Dog. Milestones, all. Happy Birthdays sung in how many languages, to birthday girls and boys the world over.
Not all get gifts. Some just get cards. Not all get a card.
I didn’t get the neverending table. I didn’t get the party. I didn’t get tea and scones. But I did get a cake. The Mad Hatter’s hat, in 3D, complete with iced 10/6’ note. Everything comes at a price.
We are now in House 6.
Today it’s somebody’s birthday.