Of we four brothers, I was the only one whose birthday fell out of school term time. There are far worse fates. One of my godsons had the misfortune of being born on 27 December, for example. Despite all protestations to the contrary from his family and friends, the proximity of his birthday to Christmas must have cost him a fortune in missed presents over the years. Because so many people have already drifted away on their summer holidays, my birthday has always had a sort of wistful air to it (unless, of course, I have also drifted away). The wistfulness was exacerbated this year by the fact that I have been stuck in the office all day digging into a massive backlog of e-mails and files. But an idea has come to me. I think I am going to invent a special birthday date for myself – you know, like royalty. This date would always be at a weekend and either when I am on holiday myself or when everybody else is around to celebrate my birthday with me. It could be catching.
I know exactly how that feels as my birthday also fell out of school term time, but as it is on August 31st it always had the “end of holidays” feeling looming above it as well and some presents were school oriented. But since every cloud has a silver lining I could always finish the holidays with a “bang”.
Maryse.
Happy belated birthday Martin. Helsinki’s birthday is the 23rd of July, she is surely in sympathy with you. She often celebrates her birthday with her friends in May/June, before the end of the school year. Then she gets her “regular” birthday with family during the summer. Not bad, really.