Sharing

You may expect from that title that I'm about to talk about my children's lack of ability to share.

But no. It's actually mine.

I was 38 last Thursday. Happy Birthday you say? That's very kind of you.

But for every time someone sings Happy Birthday to me, I have to sing it again. For my husband. And my Dad. And probably Jarvis Cocker if he happened to be passing (but I don't feel quite as aggrieved about him). Because we all have the same birthday. That's just weird isn't it?

Don't get me wrong, I know that until the age of 21 whilst I "shared" my birthday with my Dad the spotlight was somewhat pointed in my direction. I can't imagine he really wanted the Mr Happy birthday cake we had when I was five. Or to watch 'Supergirl' at the cinema with four nine year old girls. Or to be woken up at the crack of dawn on his own birthday for, let's face it, about 20 years.

Hang on I'm talking myself out it this, maybe it was a bit worse for Dad than me...

But the husband sharing your birthday thing is frankly a bit annoying.

When people ask me how we met I regale them with this lovely tale:

We went to primary school together, then years later met again in a dubious (popular with students) pub. He was quite good at pool. I wasn't (which at least meant my 20p lasted a long time). He said "Are you coming out on my birthday on Saturday?" I said "Really that's my birthday too". Oh how we laughed. On our birthday we went to Spalding's dodgiest night club with friends and watched some actors dancing barefoot.

Some might say it was fate. I say I'd rather we had a different birthday.

He freely admits that the likelihood of him making me a birthday cake is slim so I mostly make my own. Unless I get to have some of Dad's. Which implies more cake. And to be fair the girls bought me one this year anyway. Perhaps things aren't so bad after all...

But I usually have to arrange nights out and book my own babysitter. Although that isn't such a bad thing for a control freak I suppose...

If nothing else I am absolutely sure that sitting down to discuss matching birthday budgets does rather take the romance out of it all. But then I suppose it does for Paul too somewhat. And god help him if he didn't spend as much on me as I do on him - that's some added pressure right there. And he does buy me lovely things. Hmm.

In actual fact this year was quite special overall because Dad turned 70. So we had a day just for him with nearly our whole family and lovely food. And despite the fact it was his special day really, Paul and I still got our names on the cake. And it was the third birthday cake we'd had in four days so I can't really complain.

Ok I give in. I quite like it really. And Paul is definitely older than me. I mean it's only 12 hours but it counts right? I'll stop moaning. Until next year...