Early birthday

With some of my friends, I'll check arrangements on the day, to make sure everything is still on track. With others, I don't really feel the need to bother, and my friend Mark is one of those. Last week I arranged to stay with him, this evening, as I have a meeting in Thetford, tomorrow morning.

Mark's birthday is the day after mine and although it's his 50th, this year, and he has a big party planned, I won't be there as I have my own celebrations planned with the kids. Thus, I made sure I had my presents for Mark with me, today, but I hadn't yet bought a birthday card. In the end, I had to grab this one en route but, actually, I rather like the sentiment. And then, as I drove south and east, I thought about what I wanted to say.

Last week, I told Mark I'd be there around seven-thirty and he'd replied that he'd be home from six, so having decided what I wanted to say in the card, the last challenge was to find somewhere to pull over and write it, as I wanted to say quite a lot.

I stopped for diesel and took the opportunity to text Mark and say that I was still on target for seven-thirty, at which point I got a slightly panicky reply from him; he'd forgotten that I was coming and was still in London!

This worked out rather well. I was able to get to Mark's, change my clothes, pop on some music, open one of the bottles of wine I'd brought, and take my time over writing his card while he was still dashing back. By the time he arrived, everything was taken care of and a curry delivery was on its way :-)