When you have a birthday against the odds, it is worth celebrating the occasion properly, if necessary with a festival of birthday events. On August 19, the 64th anniversary of my birth, I climbed up the Great Wall of China.
That evening, I joined friends in a Beijing restaurant for the first of my birthday dinners. This magnificent meal was organised by John Zhen (on the right front of the photograph)
A week later, I met with friends in Paris for another restaurant celebration, in a little place called Bistrot d'Henri. Meghan Halse
came up from Lyon, Simon and Krista Rogers came over from from Julich in Germany, and Allan Raudsepp and partner Steph, come across from the 13th arondissement. Mark Hunter joined us enroute to New Zealand via Paris.
Finally, I had a family birthday brunch in Cambridge at Giraffe restaurant, where James and I shared the birthday cake and ice cream. I have promised to help James eat his cake on his fourth birthday, due in a few weeks
!
Having found unexpected birthdays to be such fun, I am determined to have more of them. I think I might now aim for 65. The gloomy predictions of my medical advisors will need to be respectfully circumvented, and thus it may not be possible for me to please everyone.
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