The Birthday Celebrations

Thursday was my fortieth birhtday. According to my sister-in-law, that makes me Sooooo old!

Naturally, I chart birthday celebrations via the metric of cakes consumed, and this time there were four...

The First Cake: At Work

Yes, I still had to go to work on my birthday, which was both bogus and sad. However, I had taken Wednesday off to attend LC's brother's graduation (and congratulations to him - first class honours!), which meant I didn't have days left for Thursday as well.

The convention at work is that people bring in cake on their own birthday. This was instituted by a colleague and friend who has since left, who wisely argued that people won't forget their own birthdays! Though I'm not entirely sure he'd be happy to know that the Cake Convention is his most lasting impact on the place...

The cake was from Tesco. It was very nice. It also didn't survive until lunchtime, which is a good sign.

The Second Cake: At Home

When we bought the work cake on Wednesday, LC also suggested we should get a cake to enjoy ourselves that evening, since we were missing any formal celebration on the day itself. This second cake was therefore a Red Velvet cake, also from Tesco.

In the event, we didn't eat it on Thursday... or on Friday... or on Saturday. I had the first slice on Sunday, the second this morning, and have to finish it off before we go on holiday tomorrow. It's very nice... but perhaps we would have been better without?

The Third Cake: At Band

Originally, I had planned to take the evening off band for my birthday. However, there are only two of us who have keys, and the other guy had to work. So if I took the night off, so did everyone else.

Later in the evening, the band presented me with a cake. It was a chocolate cake just big enough for everyone to have a slice (and for me to take one home to LC), which is obviously the ideal.

One nice touch here, that I hadn't expected at all, was that our five younger members, all of whom I've taught at one time or another, had learned and played for me "Happy Birthday". That was a nice touch.

The Fourth Cake: A Long-Expected Party

On Saturday there was the big party. This had all been organised by LC over the past several months, and took place at a secret location (I actually knew most of the rest of the details, but not that). In this case, "a secret location" meant the refurbished hall at Colzium House - and a very fine location that was, too.

It was a great event - part ceilidh and part disco, with a rather nice buffet in the middle, lots of friends from various groups, including one old friend I hadn't seen in far too long, family members from far distant (Eng)lands, a very touching speech, and a cake.

The cake was decorated in the style of an old-fashioned Police Telephone box, which I can only assume was a reflection on my now advanced age. Unless someone can think of some other relevance that it might have...

(It was a sponge cake with creak and jam between the two layers. And very nice it was too. Though the truth is that, as great as the cake was, it was only one of many excellent things about the night.)

And that was more or less that. It was good to see so many friends again, and it was really good that my theme of "everyone has a good time" seemed to work out well. And the band really were excellent. As the leader of that band said to me, LC really did pull out all the stops for the night. Well done to her, and thanks!

Appendix: The Fifth Cake

According to myth, the tale of the birthday was in fact completed by a fifth, more specialised cake. This one also hailed from the realm of Tesco, and was distinguished from the other by its lack of gluten. I must confess that I did not consume this cake, and so it is not a part of the main saga, but it was set aside for those with specialised dietary needs. I do hope they enjoyed it.