… should now be an open book to a man who has reached a certain age. So far, a few hours into my forty third year, all I can tell you with confidence is an attempt to summit the upper slopes of the Malvern Alps, before breakfast, made me feel quite old.

That may have been a consequence of spending most of yesterday driving the wheelbarrow. I am the man who put the “Hard” into hard landscaping. In a traditional division of labour, one skilled individual sawed, drilled and generally laid out great swathes of stuff to be filled. Another drove the digger, while the Rude Mechanical was essentially giving it the full-on sweaty barrow boy.

I did get to drive the digger later and, as I suspected, it is the best boys’ toy ever. Fact. Predictably as it required a co-ordinated two handed driving technique, I was properly rubbish.

I shall be spending the next chunk of my birthday with a large new glider and the same old small talent. Normally the meeting of these two results in a depressing search for wreckage and the intense use of a bin bag. Should be fun.

And as my kids sang this morning:

“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, You look like a monkey, and you smell like one too”.

Bless.