♪I'm not goin' to a party, party...♫

My claim to fame is missing being born on the Queen's birthday and Easter Sunday by four minutes. Not much of a claim, but there it is. Since then, my birthday has landed on Easter Sunday a couple of times; that's the nature of being born within swinging distance of a moveable feast.

My memories of the day I was born are vague, given my extreme youth at the time, but my mother remembers it quite well. She tells me the drive to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta was a nightmare, as she was well into labour and my father kept speeding up, then slamming the brakes at red lights in his effort to get there. I was my mother's first child, but my father's fourth, so I'm not sure what the panic was about, except I rather doubt my father was present for the births of his first three children, given his chequered military career.

My mum had trained as a registered nurse and in midwifery before going on to become a physiotherapist in England, and was appalled to find that Canadian women had little say in the manner of their babies' deliveries. Her room-mate in Labour/Delivery was terrified, and totally in the dark about what was happening to her, and my mother tried to coach her between her own contractions.

The memories of my actual birth are rather more vague, perhaps mercifully so, leaping ahead to my mother's first glimpse of me in her room in Maternity -- all she could see was a pair of frantically kicking legs. Being a typically Taurean creature of comfort, I imagine I was furious about being dumped out of my comfortable home of the past nine months.

So, today my birthday has fallen on Good Friday which has probably happened before, but I'm really not sure. These damn birthdays are really starting to pile up. I started this morning with my tradition of singing the Beatles to myself in the bathroom mirror, changing the lyrics:

I say it's my birthday/ It's my birthday to-day!
I say it's my birthday/ I'm gonna gave a good time!
I'm glad it's my birthday/ Happy birthday to me!
I'm not goin' to a party, party...

Rather pathetic, really.

Nothing's open, so I don't get my birthday cake today, but Ancestry.co.uk offering free access to Canadian marriage records, so, to use that rather disgusting expression, I'm filling my boots.

To give an illusion of a party atmosphere around here, I'll stick in this video (in somewhat sophomoric taste in bits, so be warned) of the Beatles singing "Birthday" and you can sing it to me, okay? I'll imagine you are, anyway...