Chapter 40

So, I am soon approaching chapter forty in this story that we call life. However, it is actually not chapter forty. It is chapter forty-one because our first chapter is when we are zero years old. So that kind of ruined what I wanted to call this chapter of my life, because chapter forty-one doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

For my actual birthday, I will be in Thailand, the fortieth country that I have visited, which is part of the challenge that I set myself earlier in the year, and of course you all know about because you all read my blog, don’t you?

However, that doesn’t mean that that will be the only celebration of my birthday.

Now, approaching forty, I have no family left, but I have gathered a lot of friends, friends who I keep in contact with and who I adore, but friends that generally are quite fractioned in their groups and the groups don’t know each other.

I didn’t really want to have a party as I did with my thirtieth, which was amazing by the way, because I felt like it would, a. be emotional because I would be thinking about the family that I’ve lost, and b. it would be just a room full of groups of people that didn’t want to talk to each other.

I’ll do some little things with various friends if anybody wants to do that with me and that’s fair enough. But for the main celebration, I’ll be in Bangkok.

Today was the first of my birthday celebration activities, and it was with my friend Stacey, who I haven’t seen for a few months, well actually I saw her last week in Popmart, but that was by accident. She and her partner Miko invited me to Platform Thirteen in Oldham for sort of brunch and cake, because I said that I wanted nice cake. I arrived and it was absolutely foul weather, but it was lovely surroundings. Including a ‘loo with a view.’

We sat down in this lovely little cozy sort of restaurant, and I decided to order a halloumi burger with just the halloumi. So it was basically just halloumi on bread. That because I’m very awkward. However, it was very nice, and the chips were really lovely too, and Stacey and Miko had got me some presents, which were actually from Popmart because she knows how much I like it, and they were three blind boxes, and thankfully they were no duplicates, and I love them all, and if you’re reading this, thank you very much.

And so then we decided we would get cake, and I’ve been told this is cheesecake was really nice.

So when I came back from the toilet, I sat down at the table and about thirty seconds later, bam, lights out. And I thought it was a power cut because of the weather, but then happy birthday to you.

Oh my God, I was, I was actually really not embarrassed, but excited, I think, and everyone was saying, oh, are you embarrassed? I was like, no, because I don’t really get embarrassed, and when they got to happy birthday dear, I had to fill my own name in, which I thought was quite fun, and they put a little forty candle in the cheesecake.

And it was glorious cheesecake. Like really really nice. It was a Twix cheesecake. And the staff were so lovely too. They wished me happy birthday and happy holidays on my way out and it felt very personal.

So, I would say the first of my birthday celebrations have gone pretty well, and I am looking forward to more of the same in different places with different people.

🧳UNPACKED

• Turning forty can’t be stopped but celebrating with cake can help

📦 PACK HERE

• Platform 13