I often find my birthday a weirdly stressful experience, so this year I decided I was going to be as low-key as possible about it. I mostly achieved this by opening the small number of cards and presents from my family when they arrived, rather than saving them to open today, which meant that today has mostly just been a normal Saturday. I went for a nice swim in the rain, sewed foldover elastic on to one and two-thirds pairs of dragon-print pants, and we have a Rick Stein menu box as a slightly fancy dinner (given the weather, I am really very glad we didn't decide to chance going out for an outdoor meal somewhere). Not a bad day at all, really, even if I was interrupted by a panicked text from my head of department mid-afternoon saying that some key documentation for interviews on Monday morning hadn't been uploaded, and could I do anything to help? (I could. It took less than ten minutes. But even so.)