6535/19455
Finally after 13 years together my wife has caught up and is 40 years old, like me. I just hope she has found the emotional maturity that I was displaying on that birthday and the months afterwards.
I suppose my life did begin at around about 40 and a half which was the point where we started dating and I started podcasting (not connected, but strange that it was the same month) and everything changed. Hopefully Catie won’t have a similar epiphany and move away to enjoy a better life.
She seems not to have had the same existential crisis that I experienced, so I doubt she’ll get a show and a book out of it (taking things in your stride is no way to earn a living).
We had a terrific day. The kids slept in, which was nice of them, but that did mean that my plan to let Catie sleep in and then bring her breakfast and presents in bed AND get the kids ready for school and nursery was a bit rushed. I had to wrap the presents and get the kids to write the cards too, because of being a disorganised idiot.
But it all came off fine, though my son bodged the surprise a little by insisting on rushing ahead and waking his mum himself, so he got to sing Happy Birthday twice.
I had to do some little bits for the audio book - incredible to think that that is coming out in two weeks and we’re still working on it, but aside from that we had a day off, which was very confusing and we managed to have two meals out and a shopping trip, so had it not been for the masks and the limited numbers and the shops feeling a bit too empty it would almost have been a normal day.
On the way to the restaurant tonight I was nearly run over by a woman on a mobility scooter who wasn’t looking around whilst reversing. It would have been a sad end to the day had I died, but I think stone clearing fans would have found it a wryly amusing way for me to depart.
The actual day of my 40th birthday was maybe one of my favourite birthdays. I managed to see lots of mates and do lots of my favourite things. And though I was still a little way from coming to terms with being a grown up (I never actually did - I just stopped worrying too much about it) I forgot about it for 24 hours.
http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/12/7/2007/index.html
Events have conspired to stop Catie’s 40th being any more than a family celebration, but I think all in all this might have been a better day. A lie-in, breakfast in bed with the family and a few hours of escape and being able to pretend we had no responsibilities again. We were home by 9pm and drank champagne in front of the fire.
Catie might have done better with her choice of husband, but she could have done worse.
Her husband, however, could not have done better.
RHLSTP with Stevie Martin (not the one from Brighton) is now up
on audio
Plus a tardy, but needed apology from Michael Ian Black
