The Best Laid Plans

I am one of those older people who is not young enough, nor old enough, to wish to celebrate a birthday. I am past the stage of claiming each quarter of a year to increase my age, and not yet at the stage of adding each quarter of a year to my time spent on this small planet to impress with my longevity. Unfortunately there is never an age when other people do not wish to celebrate your birthday, whether they do the same with theirs or not. In about a fortnight’s time, I will be at that stage again, the obligatory acknowledgement of another year passed, usefully or wasted, and the congratulations hurriedly spoken from those feeling equally obligated to give a nod of recognition.

Unfortunately I have chosen to live and work in a society where birthdays are to be celebrated, and where the person who has achieved another year is the one giving out gifts. Or, better perhaps, treating those who are prepared to spend some time in their company. The usual form is a small cake divided and set out on an office desk, coffee, biscuits perhaps, and most definitely a good selection of sweets and candies. For a round birthday, when someone completes another decade, matters take a different dimension here. Now we are at the major celebration stage, and anonymous people sneak in while you are not looking, and decorate your office with toilet paper – carefully, tastefully printed with your age – and other magnificent things, all of which are due to be recycled as waste one, maybe two days later. There might even be a collection, a small gift, a card, and some spare change left over.

The person receiving all these gifts, for a round birthday, a once in a decade birthday, usually gathers all their own loose change together and offers a meal and sit down together. It is something special, after all. The last one that I was privileged to attend – a sixty year celebration – had a charitable kitchen service parked outside the building, with a fryer, fresh produce on a small table, and three people producing Falafel Rollos, what we would call Wraps. The balance over the actual cost went to support a small charitable association helping young foreign children integrate.

I do not have a round birthday this year. If all goes well, I will never have another round birthday while working in an office, or even while working to earn a living. Of course, none of us know whether the government, in its wisdom, will raise the retirement age, to save paying out so much from our secure and definite pension fund, as they have done before. Where I was once looking forward to retiring, again, at a reasonable age, I have had to put those plans on hold for a further two years of daily nine-to-five, in order to qualify for my pension. The forty-five working years necessary are well behind me in the calendar of my working life. I will be closer to fifty years of working life than forty-five when I eventually clear my rarely-used desk and close the communal office door behind me.

To be clear, I am already a pensioner, and have been since my early thirties. One of the great advantages of military service, even if that pension comes nowhere near a level comparable to a living wage. Had I kept my private pension plan, opened when I was seventeen and just starting out, rather than take the less-than-I-paid-in payout during a time of less financial stability in my life – working but homeless – it might have been possible. But, as they say, I was young; I needed the money.

So I do not have a round birthday this time, but a halfway one, and feel the need to celebrate for the last time with those I have been condemned to work with for the last few years. It has not been fun, pleasant, friendly, or anything similar, no matter how much we smile at one another across our computer monitors, and no matter the appeasing tone when talking, if nothing else. I am, however, fortunate to have been one who did not, does not, spend much time in the office, putting a brave face on it, lying through my smiling teeth. Much of the time I am outside, doing what I do or, better, reading a book while my equipment does what it does. This side of the job has been an absolute pleasure, although I would not necessarily have chosen it for myself, but that is another story.

To celebrate this half decade I have planned a meal – or two, really, since one meal does not cover all eventualities in our modern society – and invited my colleagues across the entire department to join me. The offer is for a full meal, or a full vegetarian meal. Those of you who glanced at the featured header photograph will have an inkling of what is planned. For those who didn’t, well, it’s too late now, you had your chance. For the vegetarians I plan on making lasagne: soy meat with garlic and tomato, layered with sour-cream spinach, covered with grated Scottish cheddar. My spellchecker claims that lasagne is not correctly written, and a search on the internet tells me this is the plural version which, fortunately, fits, as I have to make more than one lasagna. Language is such a complicated thing.

For the rest, those who still eat meat, I have decided upon Haggis, with tatties and neeps, of course. The thing is, I have not told any of them that I will be making Haggis, and I am quite happy to keep it that way. For some unknown reason there is a great aversion to eating Haggis, based on what people believe to be the contents of those stomachs. It was certainly the case in the past and, if things keep on going the way they are with out world, it will certainly be the way of the future: you eat what is there, what is available, and be thankful too. If you’re going to eat an animal, everything is edible. It all tastes excellent too, when properly prepared, always supposing that you’re not a wimp with strange susceptibilities a weak stomach, or scruples, especially when you don’t know what it is in advance. There are many things I have eaten, having travelled the world for many years, which I might not have tried, had I known what they were. So Haggis it will be or, rather, not.

All the best laid plans, and so on. The invitations are out, the menu is prepared, I have spent a small fortune on Haggis, potatoes, turnips, spinach, lasagna, cream, soy, and the right cooking utensils to make the while possible. Unlike most, although I suspect really like most, I do not have a commercial kitchen at home, nor one available at work. Cooking for thirty or thirty-five people is not a normal thing here, certainly not for me. Although, that said, I have worked, in my long life and various careers, as a cook. I have spent a further small fortune on pots and pans, lasagna forms and things. Everything is there, everything is ready.

And on the day planned for my minor celebration, the half a decade birthday party, the invite all those you have to invite and give them food they’d normally never go near event, the union has called a strike day.

Image © Urban Camera.