elegantly dressed birthday

I know this is a massive cheat, but sometimes the accoutrements are as important as the garments. And trust me: this breakfast looks a sight more elegant than Ms B this morning! It is a shame not to look as elegant as the phrase "the baroque birthday" might suggest, but I'm afraid that is just now it is. Elegance can come from within, as we know, and it can also come from so far without that it is in the furnishings.

I always think some nice china can improve almost anything. I have a massive thing for cups and dishes, jugs and vases. The plain cream vase is one of two I have - the other one is about four inches in diameter - and I love them. They re quite old but I don't know how old and can't even remember where they came from.

The flowers are on their way out, but are two weeks old and have been beautiful. The adorable black spotty cup is a present! Christine (aka the Cat Lady) has delightfully given me a pair of them for my birthday - she was worried because "they've been out for ages," but I have actually, in fact, been hankering after them for ages! So that works out. The bowl contains blueberries, nectarine, strawberries and yoghurt. No fat.

It's very late to be posting a breakfast picture, but by a miracle I slept until nearly ten! And, yes, ate my little breakfast at noon. I did waste my morning trying to google something amusing about my birthday, but failed utterly, only getting sidetracked into the depressing story of Sir Thomas Wyatt's only son, Thomas Wyatt the younger, who was beheaded on this day in 1554 for leading a rebellion to prevent Bloody Mary from marrying Philip II of Spain. (It didn't work: she married him anyway, of course. She was in foolishly in love with him, though for him it was just political expediency, and I myself have seen her personal prayerbook stained and hardened with the salt of her tears.)

I do share a birthday with the poet ("poor, mad") Christopher Smart, born in 1722, who is most famous for his poem about his cat, Jeffrey (which I will not reprise here, but of which I am sure the Cat Lady would approve). But I knew that already.

Ms Rational Self-Determinism tried to wreck the vibe by ringing me up and asking how old I was, because she can't remember. "Good," I said.

Not sure what next.* It's strange being off sick on your birthday. I had a lovely card from the team at work, though. In a hot pink envelope. Coffee, somewhere, in a bit. Oh, my dreamlike days! My limbs are pulling strangely downwards, and my brain is in a fuzz. Where is the intellegual rigour? I'll take the kids out for dinner, at some comparatively vast expense. I think I could eat a seafood pizza, if I told them to hold the olive oil.** And I'm just waiting for the day when a birthday treat doesn't have to be on my tab.

However, I'm wearing a groovy top I haven't fitted for ages!

* Secretly, I think I feel like going and having another little kip...

** Later. Okay, here's the deal. Seafood pizza really needs olive oil. Dried-out mussels are not a good thing.