It’s Catering’s birthday on Saturday, which means I have another birthday celebration to try and organise in the time of COVID. There is a clear division in the family, I presume along genetic lines, so that unlike the Smallest Boy & me, Catering (and also Alex) does not like a fuss and is really uncomfortable about being the centre of attention, which makes party/celebration planning a bit of a nightmare. I usually suggest something that he buys into and subsequently invite a number of other people to join us when he’s not looking (last year lovely drinks in the Crafty Tap Room followed by a kebab).

It’s much harder to arrange something when we’re not allowed out. He has put his foot down and vetoed the Zoom pub crawl round the house I was planning – to be fair the logistics of safely carrying my laptop through the different rooms after several drinks were going to be tricky. The scenario of laptop meets drink number 6, could only end in disaster.

So far he has said he’d just like a nice dinner with me, but as far as I can see, that happens pretty much every night at the moment and doesn’t seem to be much of a celebration, unless of course he’s planning to break out the seriously good wine. So, weather permitting, I have organised a virtual darts match in the afternoon and the traditional Colin the Caterpillar birthday cake, surely he can’t object to that. On that note I’d better get the dart board out, weed the oche and start practising.