Who should I invite to my birthday party? A decades-old question that is harder to answer than it is to decide on the right outfit for the occasion. Harder than pulling off the trickiest cake recipe, and harder to work out than what to do to celebrate! I’d like it to be small. I’d prefer it if people knew each other. I don’t want to offend anyone by not inviting them. It’s just too complicated and I’d really, genuinely, prefer not to do anything anyway.

As a Christian, I know God wants me to love others. And I want to do that widely and openly, without favouritism or exclusivity. But I also crave deep friendship. And I feel real tension about doing both of those things well. A tension that is brought home to me every year when I briefly contemplate the idea of getting a few people together to ‘celebrate’ my gradual aging.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve hated lizards and frogs. I don’t know if it’s to do with the way they look and or the way they move, but they creep me out. Despite this, I love dinosaurs. (I went to watch Jurassic World a few weeks ago- five stars!) There’s just something about the way they look, and how angry the carnivorous ones are in movies that I truly adore. My husband has pointed out on multiple occasions that Godzilla is just a giant lizard, but every time he says this I just change the subject.