38 feels pretty good.





Better than 37 did, oddly.

My birthday celebration on Saturday was lovely. Bobby cooked us all pancakes before we took the train to the Tower of London.





Steve very sweetly took my mum-in-law around the tower (those two have such a close bond, it is wonderful...) while the rest of us skated on the moat.





The fog made the river look just like a Monet print, we thought.





And from Monet to monkeys...





And then we ate a totally delicious lunch at Wagamama - though people still had room for extra goodies afterwards.





Aaargh! You shouldn't have pushed it!





All of these pictures (and there are more here were taken with my birthday present from Bobby - a tiny, beautiful, pink camera. It's perfect - has really good resolution, yet is small enough to fit in my purse. And I wasn't expecting it at all, since I happen to know what I'm getting for Christmas, and we'd agreed that it would count as a combined Christmas/birthday present... I'm very lucky.

And in the evening I forced the family to watch Elf with me. No-one ever believes me, since it's really not my usual style, but I love that movie. So there. The other thing people seem to have a hard time getting to grips with is our family's habit of relocating birthdays to more convenient days. If I'd celebrated my birthday on its real date, I would have had a full day at work - with my less pleasant teaching groups at that - followed by a neurologist's appointment in the evening. So, not great. The normal solution for most people would be to open presents etc on the real birthday, and do something fun on the next free day. But I think that just dilutes both days, because then you just get two half-hearted birthday celebrations. Whereas if you simply pretend that your birthday falls on a different (convenient) day, you can make sure that you have a wonderful day all day long. I know most of you are probably still making that "huh, she really is crazy" face that I see every time I tell someone about this method, but seriously. Think about it. I'm right!

The neurologist's appointment was sort of unsatisfactory. The really good news is that the MRI and all the blood tests came back perfectly normal. The bad news is that I still have my weird symptoms, and am likely to have them for the foreseeable future. The neurologist thinks (guesses, since the MRI didn't pick up any visible signs of damage) that the symptoms first arrived as a part of viral infection which has affected my brain stem, leaving some residual inflammation. This inflammation is responsible for the numb feeling on the right hand side of my face, and the pins and needles I keep getting in my hands and feet. And for the off-balance sensations that still bother me. Sadly, he says that since it hasn't cleared up in 6 months, it's probably not going to. But, it won't get worse. So, not the end of the world, but a bit frustrating.

Today is going to involve getting the house ready - my parents arrive this afternoon, and will be spending the next few days with us - and the board game Sophie gave me for my birthday. Chocolate and Doctor Who, what could be a more perfect combination?