Birthday

The other day it was my birthday, one of those big ones with a zero at the end. I had some lovely cards, a lot of chocolate, and my daughter's boyfriend cooked a beautiful supper followed by a birthday cake with candles and singing and then heaps of presents.

I was touched by the attention they had paid to all the rituals.

The chocolates were something else (see above) and I still have a drawerful of mixed bars and boxes. My favourite is the giant Toblerone - even after cutting off a triangle every day for days, there's still a huge lump left.

I like the nougat and nuts and the smoothness of the chocolate and the gold foil and most of all the fascinating triangular packaging with its red and gold print. I think it's my favourite because it was one of those chocolate bars that never made it into my home as a child. It was definitely too expensive and probably considered an affectation by my mum, although she had her own favourite in the Black Magic Box:

A 1960s take on sophistication

And a 1970s
https://youtu.be/O0SvkFfhtJo?si=f7DTPnKqu6mgpnlo influenced one.

I wrote earlier this week about making the decision to finish work at the end of September. It took me long enough after my existential crisis at the end of 2021 and continuing to prevaricate in 2023, but I finally got here. It's funny how, when you've eventually made a decision, everything seems to support it.

I'm still on my minimalist journey but after off-loading another seventy books, I still seem to have a lot. It's created a challenge about where to store them while I have the first floor electrics done. I'd come up with lots of crazy schemes like transporting them two hundred miles and putting them in the spare bedroom in the caravan.

But then I remembered I have another little room on the ground floor which will eventually be a shower room but at the moment it's empty (except for a shower tray, but that's another story). This morning I set about shifting the shower tray, protecting it with a dust cloth and then laying a bit of leftover work top on it as a firm base, off the floor, for stacks of boxes.

The boxes are quite large, so I've decided to pack them where they will be stored, placing the books in some of those sturdy Deliveroo bags I'm collecting, sorted according to genre, to bring downstairs. With luck, I can stack my yarn stash, already in 9 litre plastic boxes, next to them, and there will still be room for suitcases of clothes.

So whether petrol costs and inconvenience of a 400 mile storage round trip, or the expense of one of those self-store units, I've done myself a favour (although you have to wonder about forgetting that you have an entire room at your disposal).

Tomorrow the handyman is coming to talk about the garden, odd jobs including assembling the various bits I bought from IKEA and maybe, the smaller outstanding building jobs, like re-directing rainwater and a new plastic roof over the lean-to (also known as the garden room when I'm feeling posh).

It'll be good when they are all done, because I'll be able to slap a coat of paint on the walls in the big front bedroom and get a house-mate.

But before then, I shall be gallivanting in London on Thursday and enjoying another birthday treat - supper at the Holborn Dining Rooms. Have you noticed how Scotch Eggs seem to be having a moment? Used to be they were a rubbery, soggy-crusted item wrapped in plastic in pub cold shelves, bought only by the desperate who'd had too much to drink to find a proper place to eat.

Now they have black pudding or venison in the sausage meat, the coating fried to a crisp and often a quail (super small) or duck (very much larger) egg in the middle, rather than the traditional bantam's egg and come with curried mayonnaise (I didn't like it) or, at the Holborn Dining Rooms, celeriac rémoulade.

But pies seem to be the thing in these upmarket dining rooms, so I'll probably have pie as I like a bit of pastry.