My birthday... in Orange, red and gold are the leaves. Autumn 2015

I can no longer claim to be in my early 40s, I hit 45 at 4am, Kenya time, today!

My birthday has consisted of many facets and has been lovely. On Wednesday night Rich and I drove up to Birmingham to see Faithless. Rich knew I loved them before I did, whenever I heard one of their tracks on the radio I commented that I loved the song without actually knowing who the band were.

Several months ago Rich stayed awake until 2am (without telling me) in order to buy tickets to their upcoming tour as they went on sale, as a birthday treat. He did good 😊

We, of course, went to the very front of the crowd (which consisted of approximately 15000 people!) And danced, and danced. It was so fantastic! I just grinned all night, loving the whole deal. The people around us were all dancing and grinning too.

This is the best photo I took.

Of course, we’re not massively close Birmingham (an hour and a half to two hours), so once the gig was finished and we had queued to leave the venue, queued to pay for parking and queued to leave the car park, we then had the long drive. At one a.m. we finally got back and, after five hours sleep I was back at work.

Rich had the day off but working in schools means working unless you’re in your death bed…

So I got through Thursday on zzzzzzzzz’s and caffeine.

Then today, Friday, is my actual birthday. I got up early for a relaxing bath, in peace. T heard the bathroom door and joined me for a long, early morning chat.

I was kinda grumpy this morning but, at lunchtime, I work on the multi use sports area. We had a lovely time with football and playing around. It was quite chilly with bright sunshine and I think that was what perked me up.

We had Christmas sweater day today in school. I didn’t want to buy one but had an old, shapeless, sparkly sweater and some bright felt. I made felt Christmas decorations then pinned them onto the sweater. Then a teacher gave me some of her birthday stickers 😊

Of course, birthdays are for giving and I’ve been meaning to give blood for years. I had made an appointment for today which was straight after school. Rich picked the girls up while I drive over to the church which was hosting the blood drive. After answering a plethora of questions regarding my sex life, and whether or not I’d had anal or oral sex with a gay man (amongst other questions) in the last twelve months…

Then they discovered my ridiculously small veins. Yes. It’s true. My veins are rather pathetically small. Various nurses prodded and peered at them before I was told it was a 40/60 chance as to whether they’d get anything out. I told them to give it a go and they did. I had utter faith in the nurse who hooked me up as he seemed efficient and confident.

And I chugged that blood out once I was attached 😊

after a bar of chocolate (which I’d taken with me because it doesn’t have refined sugar) and a pack of ready salted crisps (the only ones without sugar) as well as even more water (I drank loads today)I came home.

Rich suggested dinner at Nandos. Mmmmmm it was good. And I had my ‘keep calm it’s Kate’s birthday’ badge on so they put us on the best table! That was some mega, hot, tasty chicken in pitta.

Rich had made a sugar free cake cake, it’s really good! I think I was the only one who liked it since I’m used to no sugar but it was GORGEOUS!

Of course, pressie time is an important part of birthdays…

Lots of Lush, nail varnish and stickers (I rarely do my finger nails but love my toe nails to be painted), some sugar free chocolate and a mini bottle of prosecco (not for tonight, of course, since I mustn’t drink alcohol after giving blood), a pair of Trees of Life earrings and two books. One about the magic of maths and physics (yes, I have learned to passionately love maths!) and The Girl who saved the king of Sweden (or something like that) which I almost bought last summer!

Then we all curled up on the big bed to read Christmas stories. We had a slight problem in that The Polar Express became damaged in transit (I ordered it from Amazon and received a message, yesterday, to tell me that it had been damaged so I needed to phone Amazon customer services who were brilliant. It should arrive tomorrow) and I can’t find The Night Before a Christmas anywhere in the house. We were able to read The Grinch together though!

It’s been a lovely, brilliant, fantastic, very good day.

Last updated December 04, 2015