The Incredible Birthday

Did I really just have the best birthday of my life? I know I did. From the sundrenched carnival of Piccadilly to the cobblestone capitalism of Covent Garden, the day was full of Italian flavours (an Italian coffee in the morning; Foccaccia at lunch; Gnocchi at dinner), Russian moods (the mordant laughs at a Chekhov play) and English gregariousness (cheerfully squeezing into each other on the tube, on the escalator, queueing outside the theatre).

What made it the best birthday was spending time with the people I love in a foreign place. This was a first, and possibly a one-off, and I was determined to cherish it. Dad had a shitty cold but persevered with a visit to the West End by medicating and quietly coughing at key moments in the drama. It was exactly what I went through 4 years ago at the San Francisco Opera, attending opening night with a cold and trying not to cough through I Pagliacci. These foreign entertainments won't be postponed!

I can now say I've travelled with my parents, something I've always wanted to do.

And then there was my partner, sitting exhausted and handsome across from me on the tube on the way from Oxford Circus to Vauxhall. I thought: this is it, he has finally made it to London after a lifetime of dreaming about it, and he has spent the day trying to make my day special.

I feel more blessed than I can say.

Haha that's actually bullshit I can keep going on about how blessed I am for ages, and I will too. Watch this.

Back in Australia, when I was younger (ie age 44), my one idea of something I might like to do in a potential trip to London was that I might go to a posh perfumery. So I found one using the magic of internet: Bloom Perfumery in Covent Garden, and decided that I could go there on my birthday. Well, by the time it came down to it, I was starting to feel overextended and ready to give up on the whole concept. Jetlag and a lack of unscheduled time was starting to take its toll on me: who cares about products, or services, or things, or moments, or anything really? Just let me stare into the sweet middle distance and unfocus.

Stuart insisted we go. This was to be his present to me. So we went.

It was everything I wanted from an experience of a high end perfumery. The sales assistant Sarah was the real deal; she was able to describe scents correctly without any bullshit at all. She knew her orris from her tobacco, her citrus from her floral, her woods from her vetiver. I encouraged her to follow her intuition, and she offered me eight different scents, two of which vied for my attention: Ormonde Man (Cardamom, Oud, Hemlock) and Run of the River (Lemon Thyme, Oakmoss). This was TOUGH. I opted for the former, thinking that the Lemon Thyme note in "Run of the River" might be potentially disagreeable. But it was a spectacular scent - really full of personality and mystique.

After that, we met up with Mum and Dad and went to see Emilia Clarke and Indira Varma in Chekhov's "The Seagull." This was a funny satire about ordinary desperations that turned into a depress-fest about wasted lives ("it's a rough life" says the dumped Nina after her child has died and trauma has destroyed her confidence). What a sting in the tail. It was exciting to be in a theatre for the first time in years, but to see two of my favourite performers right there in front of me was surreal and wonderful. I've never seen Indira Varma get a chance to do so much acting in a role before; she was wheedling, peevish, Macchiavellian, and charismatic.

It was just a wonderful day, I can barely process it. It even included a stint this morning sketching the Vauxhall Bridge which did a lot to calm me down.

Tomorrow we go to what Philomena Cunk calls "the clock museum" at Greenwich, where time was invented. I don't know if I'll sleep through the night, but at least I'll have a slew of new happy memories to think about so I can smile in the dark, listening to the nighttime sirens and their Doppler shifts singing across the Vauxhall Bridge.Read more