Ripping open the pressies was always a highlight. Usually, it would be a box of plastic soldiers someone's mum had stashed away in the pantry, for that special occasion when they'd forgotten someone else's special occasion.
I'm sure you know what I mean.
And being English, and steeped in certain traditions, the big day ended with football. Always football. The round ball kind.
This was made somewhat easier by my grandparents always providing me with a new ball.
On cue, the week of the big day would turn over on the calendar and a large wrapped round object would magically appear with the postman. Remember them?
Despite Mum's innocent claim it was a "lampshade" as she hurriedly hid it away, I knew otherwise. I might have been 9 but I wasn't stupid. I mean if it were surely we'd have lots of them in the house at that stage. And did we? No.
Anyway.
Time wore on. I got older and eventually found myself on the west coast where us in our late teens basically drank our birthday away, depending on how many 50 cent coins we'd been able to save during the year and whose turn it was to see if they could pass for 20 years of age at the bottle store.
Then came those years where paying the mortgage and mixing concrete for the path in the backyard kept you busy and the littlies cared more about your birthday than you did.
But you till enjoyed the stick figure drawing on the homemade card and the writing which said "Love you Bad" instead of "Dad".
Nowdays I'm all grown up. Ahem.
A birthday rolls around and I go through the motions of pretending I don't want any fuss - as you do.
Privately I'm hoping its a humdinger with all the special treats.
I'd be a little spooked if my grandparents sent me a football seeing as they sit on the big couch in front of the telly upstairs these days but any presents are warmly welcomed.
I have to say in terms of birthdays Mrs P and the whānau have never let me down. In fact, my beloved is a supporter of the full birthday weekend. Who am I to argue?
So recently as I watched another year roll on by, we had a few drinks, opened a few presents, ate some ridiculously unhealthy food that will probably take a whole year to exercise off and generally had a good time.
Mrs P even made a cake.
Now I have to be careful not to offend here but I have to say it was fairly obvious to all of us standing round at the cutting ceremony this cake would not be winning any prizes on Master Chef.
It was hard as the proverbial rock. I almost dislocated my shoulder trying to cut it.
Mrs P was aghast. Obviously something had gone wrong in either the preparation or the cooking. Even the slathering of a chocolatey topping, er, on top (where else does a topping go?) couldn't save it.
We all ummed and aahed and made excuses - "I'll save mine for later", that sort of thing - to try and make Mrs P feel a bit better.
Luckily a prospective son-in-law with a cast iron constitution and a hunger to match couldn't see what all the fuss was about and made a sizeable dent in the creation before he too gave up, presumably concerned about excess weight on the flight home.
Later as I helped Mrs P with the dishes we were able to laugh about the whole episode.
She has been back over the recipe and checked her ingredients. She is adamant she did nothing wrong.
That sort of confirms my suspicions though. When she asked me what sort of cake I wanted I yelled out from the other room - "coconut".
She obviously thought I'd yelled - "concrete".
• Kevin Page is a teller of tall tales with a firm belief too much serious news gives you frown lines. Feel free to share stories to kevin.page@nzme.co.nz .
