Birthdays

When you have only ever had two birthdays - and you don't really remember either of them - the impending arrival of a third birthday is a matter of some moment. For at least a month now, the Bullfrog has been eagerly anticipating her third birthday.



She is vaguely aware that other people have birthdays too. These mainly serve as a marker to the arrival of her own birthday. She knows, for example, that Daddy's birthday comes before hers. She seems to find this a little unfair, but is bearing up with good grace.

Of late, our conversations have focussed on her birthday present. Yesterday she explained that she would like two presents, an idea that I agreed might be acceptable depending on the presents in question. She explained that she would like a Hello Kitty house and a crane. The Hello Kitty house appears to be a concept rather than an actual thing. She is very fond of Hello Kitty and very fond of doll houses. I suspect she has made a logical leap and decided that a Hello Kitty house would be just the ticket.

The crane she is referring to is the heavy equipment type crane, not the bird.

She does appear to have a double life. She spends much of her time being one Disney princess or another - apparently, tying a muslin sheet to your head makes you Rapunzel - and she rather enjoys fluffy, cute, girly things. She will always, for example, prefer a dress over trousers.

On the other hand, whenever we are out walking, she is fascinated by building sites and the various equipment on them. For the last few weeks, there has been a small apartment block under construction along our usual route to pre-school. For about a week, they had a transportable crane on site and it became necessary to stop and admire the crane every morning. If the crane was actually operating while we passed, there was great excitement. Waving of hands and calling out of "Oh wow!" The workmen there got to know her and for the last few days that the crane was on site, it was always operating when we passed. This may not have been entirely coincidence.

Well it seems that she has made another logical leap and decided that if there are cranes out there, there must be one suitable for a 3-year-old girl's birthday present. Time will tell whether a toy one will suffice.

On the subject of birthday presents, I have been inundated with requests from the many thousands of readers of this blog, all asking me what they should buy for my birthday present.

You should buy this book -> Double Time

Well, it's less of a book than a short story. It runs to about 7000 words, which would be about 20-25 pages in a typical paperback. It's cheap too at only US$1.99. You should buy a copy for me and a copy for you. You should buy a copy for your friends too.

Order now, it's released on 3rd June (my birthday) and if there are a few advance orders, it might just pop up in a list or two (top ten best selling books of between 5000 and 10000 words written by an Australian living in Japan). That's about the only hope I have for getting a few sales to anyone that doesn't actually know me personally.

Once you have bought the book, you should go to the retailer that you bought it from and leave a glowing review. You can then come back here and tell me what you really thought.

I am about halfway through an actual novel too, but that won't be published until (probably) early next year. See how we go.