This morning I spent pretending to be asleep, while there was hectic activity in the kitchen. It's an old tradition, dating back to when we would get up really early to give the birthday child a treat before the day started. These days it's more rough on the birthday child - so I snuck out of bed unauthorised, and tried to get past the kitchen and to the bathroom undetected. The door to the kitchen slammed while I was busy, and I hurried straight back to bed, aknowledging the role by mimicking the illusion of sleep.

When I think about it, we are developing traditions. The kids don't need cakes and big parties on their birthdays (as long as they get to have them in the week-end), but nobody gets out of the breakfast in bed, no matter how old we are getting. And it was my turn today.

What did I get? My favourite gift was a DVD with War of the Worlds and a tin box of elegant chocolats, carried home from Berlin by my husband (I have this thing about tin boxes - there's a shelf full of them in the basement). Tomorrow, I am eating chocolate and watching sci-fi movies. Tonight I get the second present I wanted from the kids: they'll submit to going to the theatre with us, and be polite and quiet through a play by Jon Fosse, a modern Norwegian dramatist, supposedly the new Ibsen. (Yes, we do get visits by a travelling theatre even in this far corner of civilisation. It's Riksteateret.)