Age is but a number.

How old do you have to be before you become middle-aged? This is a question that have been on my mind recently. You see, in seven days time I become forty and I would like to know if suddenly, overnight, I am to become middle aged. Should I be stocking up on Ovaltine, cardigans, carpet slippers and pipe tobacco? Will my teeth be unable to cope with cutlets and toffee? Am I to start holding the newspaper at arms length and peering down my nose to read it? Or is the day after my birthday going to be exactly the same as the day before? Apart from the headache of course!

A landmark birthday heralds an avalanche of sage advice from your elders, piss-taking from your juniors and lots of "welcome to the club" or "me next"'s from your peers. Occasionally, and usually after a flagon full of whisky, I get maudlin and think why did I never achieve the potential of my youth, why is my name not written in lights, spoken about in reverend terms and why oh why am I living in a semi?! But then the melancholic whisky fog lifts, I realise that in actuality the potential of my youth would have me living on a park bench, the electricity bill of having my 38 letter name and associated hyphens all lit up would be crippling, I would rather people spoke to me that about me and my house is just that, mine. And it has my wife, my two children and my collection of Commando magazines! Life at forty has potential!

I have found as I have grown older that birthdays are hijacked by children. This is by no means a bad thing, it just means that you do things that the children would like to do, the food for the day is either chosen by them or bought with them in mind. Unless you get a babysitter. Essentially, when you get to a certain age, your birthday is just another day. However to a child, a birthday, and it certainly doesn't have to be just theirs, is an excuse to wake up early, to make cakes and to decorate the house. It is a time of almost mystical proportions. It is right up there with Christmas day. I look forward to my birthday to see the look of enjoyment on the faces of my children. There is only one down side, I just wish I could be allowed to open my own presents!!

My two have been counting the days down, telling me every morning how many days are left and every night how many sleeps are left until the big day!! They cannot stop reminding me that I have a HUGE birthday coming up and their enthusiasm is so infectious.

There is a article in one of the supplements I read at the weekend that asks what your ideal 24 hours would be, no time or travel restrictions. I have often thought about this and have decided that a fortieth is the ideal opportunity to have such a day. Mine would be something like this:-

I would wake up in the Maldives, to the sound of my children stage whispering to my wife "is it too early to wake Daddy?" It will be 6.00am! I will have my cup of tea, toes sieving the white, powder like sand before my pre-breakfast snorkel in the warm, crystal clear Indian Ocean.

Breakfast will be the buffet in the Palm Restaurant at Blue Waters Hotel in Antigua. I had the most wonderful two years working there and would love to catch up with all the friends I made. Of course, the twenty foot shiny marble buffet, covered with every imaginable breakfast treat possible and the very smiley chef, cooking the eggs to order, has absolutely nothing to do with it!

The morning would be spent with a glass of champagne in hand, floating over the Okavango Delta in a hot air balloon. We would land for lunch in amongst all the animals. I have never been on a safari but it is pretty close to the top of my "ten things to do before I die" list.

The Orient Express would then whisk us off to Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, in Oxfordshire for full afternoon tea. I would open presents in front of the huge roaring fire in the Drawing Room. I have loved Le Manoir and Raymond Blanc ever since working there almost twenty years ago and can think of no better place in the world. I was torn for which meal to have here, however the fireplace won so afternoon tea on the carpet, surrounded by wrapping paper and family it is!



Le Manoir - just the best place in the world!



I would have to watch the sunset on Cable Beach in Broome, Western Australia, hopefully with an elusive green flash as the sun dips down over the horizon. I did this twenty years ago and is an experience that I would love to share with my wife and children. I saw a green flash in the Caribbean and was blown away by it.

A sunset as it should be.

Dinner would be a great big party with all our friends. There would be great food, oodles of wine and dancing until the small hours. I cannot make up my mind where to hold this and have decided that actually, in this case, the company is far more important than the place and as long as all my oldest and closest friends are around me, it could be anywhere.

Bed would be under the stars, in a hammock, falling asleep watching the Northern Lights as they scamper back and forth across the sky. I would, however, wake up in my own bed!

Unfortunately this is just my dream. I have no idea what I am doing on my birthday, what treats may be store, however I can guarantee that the day will start early with stage whispering and my presents will be half opened by the time I get to them. I can't wait!

Audrey Hepburn said "Success is like reaching an important Birthday and finding you're exactly the same!" In that case I hope that next Friday I wake up feeling terribly successful, after all forty isn't old if you're an oak tree!

Give it some thought and let me know what your ideal day would be like.

I hope you all have a great weekend.