LESS IS MORE

"Hpfy bmfday"

Church was top-drawer today. I've annoyed myself again though, by playing too many fiddly bits instead of keeping it steady with the patches. I've got to learn how to hold back - to remember that less is more. Someone asked me when my week off will be, which I thought was hilarious. When I realised that they weren't actually looking forward to me not playing, I stopped chuckling and told them that it's in two weeks' time.

Two weeks' time will be the closest weekend to my birthday. Despite my best wishes, I will be ticking over to the ripened age of 36, and trying hard not to think about all the things I could have done in the three dozen revolutions here on Planet Earth. In the meantime, people are starting to ask whether there's a plan for socialising to celebrate - and there isn't of course because I'm not very good at organising things like that.

I'll just about manage to take cakes into work, I hope. That seems to be the thing to do: celebrate your birthday by watching your colleagues grazing on doughnuts and yumyums. "Hpfy bmfday," they mumble as they pass your desk.

I'll also manage to keep my other tradition of a lovely trip to a museum. This is something I've done for the last few years. I think it might be the turn of the National Gallery this time; maybe a little visit to the British Museum as well if there's time.

There's a delicious anonymity to London on a drizzly February day. I find myself blending invisibly into the crowd: a single pixel in the vast greyscale image that is our nation's capital. It's strangely comforting - especially when it's your birthday.

A single pixel. Hmm. It's probably best if I don't dwell on that. Less is more, after all.