Forty nine – next stop 50!

So here I am nearly one year on from when I first started this blog.

This is my 49th post. I am now 49.

So that’s it, one year and counting to the big 50, meaning the cake with lots of candles and hopefully the finish line of my 50th marathon.

Birthdays are strange things, aren’t they. A notch on the passing of time. And yet it feels the years have stood still and you’re same person you were a decade, two decades before.

Cards from friends and family arrive through the letter box to serve as a reminder of who we are, how people see us.

Mine were particularly appropriate, poignant and amusing this year. Several cake ones – of course – flowers, especially poppies my favourite, a jogger with a dog, more dogs, cycling…….one from my mum telling me I’m “utterly brilliant” – I doubt the veracity of this, but it’s delivered with a conviction that only mums can achieve.

My laugh out loud moment was one from my brother, a 1950s black and white shot of young women doing head-stands. It reminded me of an enjoyable weekend get together a few years back, when I tried to impress my young niece and nephew by doing something similar.

Admittedly, it was after the odd glass of wine or two – a reference strangely lacking from my cards this year.

Perhaps I have become more sober and sensible as I’ve got older……

….though there was a great one from a close friend – we’ve remained a trio since college days – of three dishevelled women sitting round in dressing gowns, the caption reading: “On the whole the years have been kind to us……it was just the weekends which got us into trouble.”

…..so perhaps not.

Like many people these days my friends and family are scattered many miles away in this country and abroad.

Everyone with their own perspective, differing shared experience. Every one special.

It’s good to have them all gathered together for a few days, if only on the mantelpiece.

Hopefully, next year – being the big O year – we’ll all be together for real.

Being 49, and counting down to 50, is not so bad after all.