Birthday Girl

Exactly 38 years ago almost to the hour, I gave birth to my youngest daughter in the maternity hospital which sat about 200 yards from where I am sitting at my desk today.
Alas it no longer stands testament to all the thousands of babies delivered over 100 years within its portals, having been demolished recently to make way for the new Quartermile development. Before that for many years, it was girded about with metal straps to prevent it falling apart.

I have to say that the 2nd day after New Year being a public holiday in Scotland did not seem the best day to give birth were things things to go slightly awry after delivery, as they did.
With a skeleton staff on duty some of whom were no doubt tired and feeling a bit over celebrated, it might have been a bit of a disaster, but everything worked out in the end and I lived to tell the tale.

As His Lordship and I plodded round the policies in front of the site of the old SMMP in cold stinging rain having misjudged the timing of showers, I couldn’t help wondering where all the intervening years had vanished to, so quickly.