Birthday Brilliance

Today. Has. Been. Awesome.

Fact.

I don't know how I've managed it, but I have had an absolutely wonderful day - which has just kept getting better and better! Birthdays can be tricky things but today has been wonderful, easeful and generally brilliant. And a great way to enter into a new year of being me. Huzzah.

In some ways this birthday brilliance started yesterday - which was the first day for MANY days (weeks...months...) when I felt like I could pause. Breathe. Enjoy. And have some real "me" time. No worrying about what had to be done next. No checking things off a list. No working to timetables or deadlines. Simply having a day for me. And it was great.

By the end of the day I'd ended up at the Middlewood Trust and arrived in time to help put some new barge boards on the roof, have a quick look around the garden (which I hadn't seen before) and then help out with some bits and pieces before a wonderful feast of Thai-style soup and rhubarb and banana crumble. Can't go wrong there (especially as it was all vegan! Whoop!) The day had been patches of rain and sun (and I'd even managed to see some of the kite surfers doing brilliant flying things - yay for kite surfers) and although the evening didn't lend itself to sitting around the outside fire (given it was wet) a bunch of us settled down to card and dice games. These went on for quite some time (including me teaching the rest of the gang both Crazy 8s and 7s) and so I started my birthday in great company, having fun, lit only by candles. Mhaaaaarvellous.

Off to bed eventually in a fantastic timber bunk (top bunk, of course!) in one of the bunk rooms and I woke up just before 10am and had a wander down to the river and around in the woods before returning to...cooked breakfast! Kate, who was doing breakfast, had done me a special vegan one (superstar) so my day started with a toast-sandwich filled with delicious mushrooms, tomato, onion and herbs. And yes, I did enjoy the mushrooms - much to my surprise! I ended up working mainly in the garden today and the arrival of space-twin Jenny was superb - spending time with her is always fabulous but she brought me exciting presents, too! (Including a map! Yay!) It was but a brief visit with Jenny leaving me plenty of time to get back to nettles, helping tidy up after the volunteer weekend and being shown the new, improved water tanks. Throughout the day the sun had got stronger and generally more brilliant, and I was rather sad to be leaving the wonderous greenery and "other worldliness" of Middlewood to head back to Lancaster, but with a lift all the way to the station in a very comfortable vehicle, the downs of leaving were somewhat countered.

Getting to Lancaster station I'd just missed a train to Morecambe but kept the two other train-goers company until their trains had arrived and I wandered down to the bus station (being a Sunday I had a two and a half hour wait for a train. Not really a practical option). A chat with a friend (with birthday messages having been coming in all day, lovely) and then serenaded on the bus by my nieces, I had time to freshen up and cook some pasta to have on the Prom, while gazing out at the sun and the sea, before a friend from Lancaster arrived for a lovely evening of bimbling around and making (and eating) cake. Perfect. I even got to have candles on my cake - win!

And now, just wrapping things up, I can heartily say, it has been a Birthday of utter Brilliance. Thank you, one and all, for being part of it.