My hubla is celebrating his birthday today. Not that it’s his actual birthday. Because why should the commemoration of such a momentous event last just a day? Medical professionals these days recommend that due dates for births are broadened into likely ‘birth weeks’ and I believe birthday celebrations should follow suit.

With our birthdays falling just a week apart, that would mean 14 days of revelry for my hubla and I, which suits me just fine.

But this year there’s more to my demands than sheer self-indulgence. My hubla has been on an NHS waiting list for over a year, desperately waiting to have a painful varicose vein treated (yes, he’s young for that, but a few years ago he had testicular cancer, and there turned out to be some unexpected side effects).

After hobbling around for several months, he thought about going private, but £1,500+ versus free is an easy equation to make, so he waited, and waited, and waited some more.

Then he got a phone call – a cancellation meant that he could be treated in the next few days! The downside? It was to be on his birthday…

On the one hand, a horrible way to spend your most important day; on the other the best birthday present in the world. So at 11am on his birthday he headed off to our local hospital, gowned up and settled down to wait, and wait and wait some more. He finally got treated under local anaesthetic at 5pm, having missed his birthday tea with our niece and nephew, in favour of spending six hours of his birthday in a hospital ward all alone because relatives weren’t allowed in (we take up too much space, apparently).

But now the waiting game is over, he has a pain-free future to look forward to and doctor’s orders to eat cake, drink beer and party. So the celebrations are back on. Hurrah!