There’s something about birthdays that can be quite depressing. But your one who said: “Growing old isn’t so bad if you consider the alternative,” was quite right. So I’m trying to be upbeat about celebrating the passing of another year.

I just can’t quite get my head around being the age I am. How did that happen? My life has just whizzed along in a blur to this point.

Two children, one husband, lots of cats, one dog, three houses, two hot air balloons, nine alpacas, three polytunnels, 200 poems, five novels, 70 short stories and a partridge in a pear tree later, and here I am. Still barely 30 in my head, although my recent penchant for Skechers and Lyric FM probably say otherwise.

Some famous creative types share my July 26th birthday – there’s a long list: Mick Jagger, Helen Mirren, Sandra Bullock, Carl Yung, George Bernard Shaw, Paul Galico, Stanley Kubrick, Blake Edwards, Kate Beckinsale, Roger Taylor, Nicholas Evans, Aldous Huxley, Kevin Spacey, Jason Stratham. And these are just the ones I’ve heard of. Trawl the internet and you’ll find dozens of others breaking open the jelly and ice-cream for the day that’s in it.

I’m exactly one hundred years younger than one of them. I’ll leave you to do the research. It’ll take you about as long as the first verse of ‘Happy Birthday’.

Now. Did someone mention cake?

PS The picture isn’t me on my birthday (you’d never guess, would you?). Instead, this is me trying to redress the feline/canine imbalance here. Meet Chess, the tail-less moggy who HATES cardboard boxes so much he has to rip them apart with his bare teeth. It could be his birthday too, who knows?