Just like the Queen, I have two birthdays. The first, in December, is my actual birthday and the other, in June, is the ‘official’ one: for the bringing of presents, and the throwing of parties.

My real one takes place on Boxing Day and nobody can be bothered much to make any sort of effort, having spent the day before eating their weight in Cadbury’s Roses. Even after losing all enjoyment in the Roses tin, they were still eating them. Suffice to say, nobody’s ever feeling very glad-rags-ready. Plus, due to its proximity to Christmas I’d have to wait one whole year before having any kind of celebration again. So I decided to place my second birthday slap-bang in the middle of the year, at an appropriate time when nobody’s busily distracted my Christmas and can properly join in.

So – not to put too finer point on it - the Queen and myself are pretty special and may be two of the only people in the land who celebrate two birthdays and receive gifts for both days (some people in the family have simply never accepted the June birthday so I still get an abundance of stuff left under the Christmas tree for Boxing Day, the fools).

When deciding upon this tradition, I was very pleased with myself indeed. Ha! I thought: I have beaten the system! Two whole days devoted to me. A birthday every six months! Hurrah!

However, what I actually established was two semi birthdays because first, if you’re not careful you may feel the ageing process more intensely since you’re effectively having two birthdays for the price of one each year and secondly, neither day feels particularly glitzy. There’s no big build up: one is the day after Christmas and the other…well, the other isn’t really your birthday, is it?

I bet the Queen doesn’t have this concern. She doesn’t strike me as someone who cares particularly whether it’s her birthday or not – and let’s face it, most days are her birthday, if we’re judging birthdays as days when you get everything you could wish for, without even needing to ask for it.

Anyway, I hope I look as radiant on my 88th birthday as the Queen looked on hers this week. Knowing my luck and at this rate – with all these double celebrations - I’ll end up looking more like it’s my 176th. That’ll teach me for being greedy.