I share my birthday with Mozart...

and I've been to Salzburg but there the similarity ends! What a stunning day it's been - for a start it's my birthday, and it's a Friday - a perfect combination.

Had a lovely breakfast prepared by my husband and lots of cards and pressies to open - sadly my mother had posted the card to me but forgotten to sign, nay, write anything in it!

Had a few appointments with clients at work this morning. In the first one I was using one of those lovely ink pens - you know the kind, needs barely any pressure to produce a mark...as I swept my hand up past my face to brush back a bit of stray hair, I felt the nib strike my cheek! Convinced that I had a massive stripe down my face, I spent the rest of the meeting trying to surreptitiously wipe off the mark/turn my face so that the mark was hidden! Sadly all 3 appointments ran immediately one after the other so it wasn't til after the third I got to check my face. Fortunately the mark (and oh yes there is one) was mostly hidden by fringe - but it did remind me of one hideous interview I went to. I had spent the first couple of hours that morning rearranging newspapers at my temp job. Went to the interview which was somewhere extremely posh like Price Waterhouse, and it was only in the lift down AFTER the interview when I noticed in the gleaming mirror walls a gigantic newspaper print smudge across my nose... didn't get the job.

I had to go out to see clients for another appointment and took one of our lovely admin ladies with me as a second witness (will signing) - then had to go back to the office via a shop so she could buy some "ladies' things" for one of her daughters! We got chatting and she asked whether I'd ever sent Leigh out on his own for some - no, haven't managed that yet! I used to be really coy about it all and not even buy them when we were shopping together, but sod that for a game of soldiers now - I can't be doing with the subterfuge! Talking about being coy - what's happened to the quietly discreet "feminine hygiene" signs in Boots? We went in at the weekend to be confronted by possibly the largest sign you've ever seen hanging from the ceiling declaring "TAMPONS" in enormous lettering!!! But I ramble...

This is only the morning! I was supposed to be meeting mum for lunch (and a good opportunity to get her to sign my card...) and although she was coming in on the train, told me she knew how to get to the office and didn't need a lift. 20 minutes after we'd arranged to meet I rang her and discovered that she'd spent an hour wandering around Thetford but not managed to find the office...so she was back at the station! And my mum is not good with mobiles...she has one and had rung my mobile a couple of times, but I'd had it switched off (sorry!). In probably near desperation, she'd rung directory enquiries to get the office number...from a public phone at the station...

Anyway, lunch was great (at a restaurant called The Mulberry in Thetford which I would highly recommend) and made even better by a wonderful reverse park I executed first time in a tight space - courtesy of lovely power steering in my new car! Mum handed over some goodies - including a half-eaten packet of Turkish Delight she'd bought for me but had then needed to keep her strength up during the long stromp round Thetters!

After all that the afternoon went pretty smoothly and I'm back home where I can smell wonderful things coming from the kitchen - oh what joy!