My birthday is three weeks after Christmas, and I remember, on Christmas Day, 2004, my brother had gone out with his friends on Christmas Eve and rang my parents and asked them to come and collect him and his car because he'd been drinking. I had gone to visit my parents, and I went home and thought, "Okay, this is my last Christmas in my 20s, so I want to be a bit more reflective and think, "What are things I want to do during these weeks?"" I had said to my parents that I would be over at about lunchtime, but my brother rang me at 9am, 10am, 11am, 11:30am, 12pm, and I said, "I'll be there." I remember, and this is another story, at Christmas, 1996, he was annoyed at being woken up early by my mother! I am also very much an empath, and if someone I know or respect dies, the anniversary stays with me, so if someone I respected dies on my birthday, that dominates it, not my birthday. It might seem weird, but I never forget that 29 years to the day before I was born, an event that was to lead to an injustice occurred, namely former Japanese Prime Minister, Koki Hirota was arrested and two years later, was convicted on Charge 55 and sentenced to death by hanging. Koki Hirota was the only civilian amongst the Sugamo Seven, who was executed on December 23, 1948. And what makes his sentence even more unjust is that Koichi Kido was convicted on the same three charges as Hirota, plus another four, but was sentenced to a term of imprisonment and died in 1977.

I reflect that even though I'm left-leaning, I share a birthday with Takeo Fukuda (Prime Minister of Japan from 1976 until 1978), Harao Kimitake (pen name Yukio Mishima), Faye Dunaway and numerous others.

This year, I was reluctant to have candles on my birthday cake, and only agreed because my nephew wanted them so he could blow them out. The reason I was reluctant to have them was, last year, I bought Chloé Hayden's book, Different Not Less, and when she was really little, and went into the Catholic Education System, during Mass, she was given the candle to symbolize the light and life of Christ, and she was overwhelmed, and she sneezed and extinguished the candle and they claimed that she was possessed by the devil and had to be exorcised. I felt that pain and hence I didn't want candles.

Basically, what I want for my birthday is a gluten-free Low FODMAP Chinese meal and a gluten and lactose free cake and that's it.

I also have a ritual for Christmas and my birthday, whereby I don't open all my presents at once. I open one after breakfast, one before lunch, one after lunch, and two in the evening. It helps to keep my mood stable.