The Birthday Book 18 October 2008
I used to write important birthdays in the pull-out year at a glance section of my filofax (ah, the 20th century) then I fell into using those great hardback diaries that could double as a notebook and had a handy year planner at the front or back. But with each year those got progressively smaller and it became very awkward to get all the birthday/anniversary/important date info onto the lines. So, I instigated a Birthday Book in a handmade notebook I was gifted one Christmas. A lovely thing it is too. BUT quite ineffectual, as I have never settled on a place to keep it and usually forget to look in it anyhow to be warned of imminent special days. With the result that I now rarely remember birthdays on time…not good, at all. I think I am going to have to figure out how to factor them onto the phone and have it beep at me when I should be showering friends and family with songs of greeting or just plain mocking them as they age (always a twisted pleasure). The only people who get accurate greetings are my friends on Facebook as it gives plenty of warning before the day and it’s a cinch to pass on a hola then. I envy people who have the capacity to just remember using their powers of recall alone. I do have a few dates embedded and they are the most important, I guess, but not all of them and I have many’s the godchild who has been horribly neglected down the years because of me being a bit crap at all of this. Goodness knows what’ll happen if any of them want the moral and spiritual guidance I signed up for too when I ‘stood for them’, as it’s called in Ireland. I’ll have to stop taking people on, friends or god children as I have neglected enough people in my time so far, and this must not be allowed to fester further…
