Happy Birthday to me
THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO A CERTAIN FORUM TALK THREAD. A birthday squid had somehow never occurred to me before.
We’re just back from a splashy restaurant dinner . . . the problem with sensibly and responsibly booking a taxi is then you’re kind of honour bound to get sloshed. I did the champagne okay* and looked far-away and lofty while Peter ordered a glass of red to go with his lamb–I was having scallops and sea bass–but then at the end when the sommelier** came round and asked if we wanted any dessert wine I heard myself saying, Do you have anything that will stand up to the chocolate mousse? I think it was just sloshedness that made him more comprehensible*** by the end of the evening than he was at the beginning. But the dessert wine was apparently from the south of France and full of juicy deep fruit flavours and complex tannins. With hand gestures. I liked it.
Anyway.
It’s my birthday and I’m not doing anything I don’t want to do. Wrong. I had to get out of bed in time to go ring bells. And there were only five of us so a good thing I’m so sickeningly loyal.†
Then Peter bought me Six Perfect Roses at the florist, who is open on Sunday mornings for people who want to buy flowers after they ring bells.
. . . 
And a funny new houseplant I don’t even know the name of.
‘Magic Bells’ is not something I can look up in my Royal Horticultural Society A to Z of Garden Plants. It looks like a Kalanchoe hybrid, but–?
Then hellhounds and I went for a walk.
Then we went down to the mews to open presents.
(I managed to forget to bring the ones various friends sent. This is just Peter. Peter says Finale may have to have been for Christmas.)
Good t shirt!
(Sorry about the fixed smile. Peter is still having trouble with my camera. And in the other two attempts he’s cut the top of my head off. Again.)
(Good socks!)
Then I refused to do any work, and decided to order camellias instead.†† I cruised slowly††† through the online catalogue‡ telling myself three. I can do three. No more than three. I ordered seven. I hope they’re telling the truth when they say things like ‘remains small and compact’ and ‘narrow and upright growth’.
Then I spent something like two hours on one phrase of the Lyke Wake Dirge. Remember speech rhythms! says Oisin. Why am I driven to set frelling poetry! I say. Why can’t I stick to little wordless piano thingummies! And why does Finale hate me!
Then I took hellhounds for another walk.
Then I got seriously dressed up to go out to dinner.‡‡
And look what was sitting on the table waiting for me. ‡‡‡
And then I ate too much. And that was before the chocolate mousse.§
Ooooooh.
And after. It was excellent.
And now I am going to put hellhounds out and go to bed and I may not get up at all tomorrow.
* * *
* Surprise!
** sic
*** Just pour the stuff and go away
† Approximately four of the five of us were being sickeningly loyal. Penelope had been planning on a lie-in, Edward and Alex rarely make it for Sunday mornings because they live inconveniently far away, and never on a morning when Edward is also ringing a quarter in the evening, which he was today, and me who was having a birthday. Niall is a bell junkie with no excuses. He was just there.
†† Patio fruit trees to live in pots and dahlias to come.
††† Not to say lasciviously
‡ I’ve already told you: I like Trehane Nursery: http://www.trehanenursery.co.uk/ I’ve bought camellias, blueberries and rhodos from a few other places with mixed results but Trehane’s stuff has always arrived fat and healthy
‡‡ Sorry. Forgot to get photo.^ Meant to ask waiter to take photo of Peter and me clanking champagne glasses together and . . . forgot. All this blog stuff so goes against decades of training/being a photophobic crank. Also, I’ve always hated people firing off endless camera flashes in restaurants and I’m having trouble fitting into the role of being one of those people. And I’m now in my dressing gown so even if I were in any mental state to figure out how to set up camera to fire remotely, which I’m not, it’s too late.
^ I was even wearing make up again. Three times in three months, it’s a record. And remind me, next time, to grit my teeth and buy the expensive stuff. Cheap mascara is nasty.
‡‡‡ This photo is fraudulent. The one I took at the restaurant is all weird and glary and flat. So I just did it again. (Roses don’t come home and put their dressing gowns on.)
§ You don’t expect me not to have chocolate mousse, do you?
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