Bunny Corcoran

I had an enjoyable day. Sharing one’s birthday with a saint is never easy. OK, that’s an exaggeration. Anyway, the office laid on a saint’s day party in the office - not for my birthday, I should add, but because they’re trying to raise morale, etc. Anyway, we had big old pork pies, chunky sandwiches, stiltons, ginger beer, etc. Such things are very rare as we don’t normally do anything remotely like that at all and there is very rarely such a thing as a ‘free lunch’. The CEO was conspicuously absent and the guy who pretty much runs the London office headed the event. After a speech (there were a few awards for a couple of people that came via one of our affiliates) they sang happy birthday to me which I could have done without. It was an OK day at work.

Last night I met friends, first at a wine bar in Leicester Square and then on to my favourite Chinese haunt which always does reliable food (as they did last night).

I had some nice pressies. ‘O’, my ex (female) flatmate, bought me like a repro vintage poster showing my favourite spirit, which I really liked. Will definitely get that on the wall. She also bought me a nice bottle of red.

‘R’ at work bought me a book on 20th century photography and a Decleor cleansing product (for men). ‘J’, the receptionist bought me some Nivea anti-ageing cream that I’d asked for (don’t laugh! I quite like the more expensive Nivea for men stuff) and a nice bottle of wine. My mother bought me £100 of premium bonds. ‘A’ is giving me £50 towards the expensive mirror I’m buying from John Lewis. ‘D’ isn’t sure what he’s getting me yet and I have to give him more ideas. ‘A’ also bought me a cook book.

So it was all good. In fact, it was a low key day which I like. The big, massive, party-like celebrations are all to be saved for the day I resign. That will be the day I splash out on champagne and all the rest of it.