I have these friends ...

V's gift, originally uploaded by - di.

I have these friends who helped celebrate my birthday in the most delicious ways ...

You see, today the postman asked to be buzzed up with a parcel.

He had a gift from Veronica and somehow, that woman always manages to find gifts that both delight me with their aesthetic beauty while encouraging me to go on with the life I seem intent on choosing and sometimes suffer massive doubts about ...

The gift's arrival was timely because ... there are 6 of us in the apartment today. Jessie is ill and 'we' together generate endless dishes that require washing and drying, messes that need vacuumed, bellies that need filled meanwhile I'm working on NGO work as well as trying to file the Italian series of interviews and photographs so that I can pick them up and go on with them ... as soon as I have created that new office space in my bedroom.

This gift will sit someplace on my desk I imagine, to remind me of journeys yet to be made.

And then there is Paola, who took me out for the most delicious birthday dinner before she left Genova. We went to Ristorante da Rina, a lovely experience from beginning to end.

We walked through narrow streets that were new to me back then, until we found the restaurant perched on the side of a hill above Genova's port area.

Paola translated, advising me on on this dish and that and the white wine accompaniment was delicious. It was a lovely night out which ended with laughter, as we wandered lost for a while in the complicated alleyways that make up the heart of the old city in Genova.

Thank you to both of you. You made this older woman's birthday really special.