Yes. Someone had a birthday last week!

It was all over the media:  Facebook was Ten year’s old and only had three more years to live!

That is if you took any notice of the Princeton University Research Paper that applied a modified epidemiological model to describe the adoption and abandonment dynamics of user activity of online social networks. 

Whatever that’s all about! It was certainly live, blue-fish bait to the hungry media sharks and the result was a frenzy of pre-obituary debates.

Was I being stupid though? Did the media hacks honestly think that Mr Zuckerberg had lost his vision and desire to push forward? Maybe at twenty nine, they would suggest, you lose your ability to have entrepreneurial inspiration or vision!

At which point, I will return to the title of this post: Yes, I also had a birthday last week, but being of much less US global surveillance importance, mine was marked on a more appropriate scale.

In fact, I marked mine by incorporating a Mary Lennox persona (in more ways than one) and taking a whole day to discover my own secret garden – with the absence of a robin, but with an attitude that I should be able to do what I want on my birthday.

Despite the fact that I love being at one with nature and absent of constricting time restraints, I was surprised at how many people felt deflated (on my behalf) by my low key celebration. 

It might make you think that birthday celebrations could well be put in the same folder as Christmas day and New Year's Eve and then be renamed: 'Expectations may well be dashed - especially in the minds of others'.

Don’t surmise that my choice came about because I'm beyond twenty nine year old, either. I can assure you, on occasion, I was defiantly middle aged in my early twenties and likewise, I won't necessarily follow the profile expected of a return to work mother. Put that down to my Aquarian personality, if you like.

I know that some people will take a day from their annual leave allocation, maybe I have done at some point. But you can’t expect your friends to take one of theirs and I have to feel in the mood to celebrate with a nail technician!

I’ve certainly had some pretty brilliant birthday celebrations, normally orchestrated by LSH. On this occasion, my choice was low-key-selfish style, finished with a glass of something fizzy, watching a couple of comfortable televisual feasts and wearing my comfortable lounging gear.

As far as I was concerned, the perfect end to THE day.

But wait … it wasn’t over, because I was constructing a plan. And to find out what my plan developed into, you will have to wait and see What Carrie did next!

To paraphase Mark Zuckerberg, the (possibly) best of my birthday was yet to come!

With thanks to edurock.com and wikimedia.org for the perficpics