a bunch of birthday flowers that nellie sent showed up in the arms of the delivery guy, a couple of hours after i returned from birthday breakfast at cafe mint with ms wooster. the breakfast was tasty and good, in the way that a mound of very garlicky hummus at 9.30 in the morning is good.

the flowers were good and surprising, in the way that a four-and-a-half-foot high arrangement of flowers and foliage that surely must have decimated a great swathe of tropical rainforest and dehoused several species of wildlife… is surprising.

the day passed quickly — a blur of designing order forms (a tetris-like exercise which gives me a significant and strange feeling of quiet pleasure) and print deadlines — and ended in bbq king with a plate of soya chicken noodles, a plate of chili salt prawns, a hotpot of stuffed eggplant… and then home to an entire triple chocolate cake from david jones food hall, about which all i can say is that they call it triple chocolate, but i counted about five or six.

sometimes a boy can surprise you with a slap-up feed and a whole cake, and a comic book wrapped up in pink stripes and ladybugs, and above all, by miraculously being in the same country, and city, as you, on your birthday.

sometimes a floral arrangement can surprise you by yielding, when carefully taken apart, a vase of orchids for the bedroom, one of gerberas above the kitchen sink, another of birds of paradise for the bathroom, an exotic mix of waratahs, lotus stems and anthuriums for the dining table, and a sculptural mass of the original base of tropical greenery and bamboo (oh yes!) for the lounge.

thirty-one was much better than thirty.