49 And I'll Cry If I Want To

49 is an interesting number.

The 49ers are San Francisco's NFL team; 49 BC Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon and starts a civil war; 49AD smallpox arrives in China; the 49th Parallel forms part of the border between Canada and the USA; the A49 runs from Ross-on-Wye to Bamber Bridge, near Preston; Route 49 runs from Piggott, Arkansas to Gulfport, Mississippi; Club 49 in Soho; Number 49 Aldgate - restaurant....

...and as of midnight last night that is my new age. It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to (with apologies to Lesley Gore 1963 and Dave Stewart/Barbara Gaskin 1981). The boss telephoned. But for once he wasn't crying about some misdemeanour I had done.

"Have you, perchance forgotten to put the diesel cap back on the bus, after you last filled it?"

I checked as we spoke and to my relief, I hadn't forgotten.

"Oh dear," I said in pathetic but useless conciliatory tones. "The bus has gone on another run. Would you like me to run down with the cap and give it to the driver?"

"The only thing I am going to run down is that driver who neglected to put it back on."

I walked back to the bus, thinking life was not so bad at 49 if it was going to be like this. I completed the chorus of 'It's my party and I'll cry if I want to' as I went.

'....You would cry too if it happened to you." I didn't have to think for long before I was reminded to the three times I had left the fuel cap on the depot diesel tank. Once was with the keys it it too.