Birthdays

It's Stevie's birthday today! and those are very special days around here.

Cos even if it means that you are adding another year onto an already pretty impressive tally, well god knows it's better than the alternative.

There are beers with his name on 'em and with any luck at all a damn fine round of golf.

We have a tradition of giving cryptic clues so the recipients can guess the pressie. Steve's clues are always very clear and I can nearly always guess the parcel, maybe because I am a good guesser and maybe cos the clues are clear - that'll be the Engineer in him, but mine on the other hand are less clear, a bit murkie perhaps, sometimes even plain bloody obscure cos that's the nature of my mind.

Stevie agonises over the wrapping, and it's pretty clear that I do not, but we both spend time choosing great cards. Oh I know it's a waste of money, but I don't care. My lovely girl was here during the week and she spied my little bag of cards and she just shook her head with dismay when she saw that I had bought them from David Jones. She gets hers from the shit shop and spends time writing her message, but I like the artwork and the humour, so I guess it makes me lazy, but ho hum.

This year I have planned and sorted a big old tour from Adelaide to Melbourne for his birthday, so the parcels are just some silliness cos really you have to be able to 'go the big rip' on your special day. I reckon it should be some sort of a sign. If you are too feeble to go the rip, then maybe it's time to pop yourself into one of those retirement villages, where you slurp your wine through a straw and someone spoon feeds you cake. That does not sound too bad to me actually.

Elizabeth, our across the road neighbour, is getting on a bit and on Christmas day all but swam into her kitchen to make a cuppa - yep she was flooded - bloody pipes burst in the night and the place was buggered. Stevie had been in a couple of times to see how the repairs were going, but in the end it was just all too much. Really the place needed to be gutted - carpets, cupboards, furniture and all her stuff. But she is a tough old bird. She popped the place on the market, it sold in a day and now she is happily sipping an afternoon bevvie looking at her mountain view from the 18th floor in Southport. No garden, no maintenance, just pleasing herself. Sounds bloody marvelous to me.

So when I can't go the Big Rip I am gonna happily join her.

But that isn't today!

Today is parcels and golf and silliness and dinner and beers and wine and maybe if I get him drunk enough, a little dance.

What do you do for your birthday?