Though I wrote very little on my blog in 2019, I did manage a post on my birthday.

It was a post lamenting a fairly rubbish birthday.

So, I had moderately high hopes that this year things would be marginally better. After all, this year my birthday fell on a Saturday and not just any Saturday, but the beginning of the Easter holidays.

So there was a reasonable chance I’d be able to mark the occasion, even if only in the most modest of ways.

I did not expect the festivities to be quite as modest as they ended up being though.

For reasons that are no doubt abundantly clear to anyone who has even the vaguest grasp of current affairs, I chose to spend my birthday mostly by staying in my house. And in the evening my family and I really pushed the boat out by not going out.

I shouldn’t complain. Not being able to celebrate one’s birthday is hardly the greatest of hardships given the state of the world. Many people have it worse than me.

And actually, my family made a real effort to make my birthday as special as it could be under the circumstances. I received no shortage of birthday wishes via social media and in the form of actual cards that people had posted early enough that they would get to me by yesterday.

Also I had presents.

Not one of those presents was toilet paper though, and really that does seem an oversight on the part of the gift-givers.

In all honesty, I was never going to do anything extravagant for my birthday and I’m grateful that I was able to spend it with my wonderful wife and daughter.

I’m also lucky to have such a lovely extended family, and while it’s hard that I can’t see them at the moment, the regular messages, photos and video we’re sharing with each other are some consolation.

We’re all a bit sadder today, because like so many, we’ve been personally affected by the current pandemic.

But I know we’ll be there for each other and during these difficult times, that really is something to hold on to.