My birthday turned out really well. It started at midnight on Friday with Pal bringing out the flowers he'd hidden under the sink (I'd inadvertently opened the door and caught a glimpse of them) and pouring us a teeny bit of white wine each. At breakfast on Saturday, he unveiled the creamy cakes that had been kept under wraps in the fridge.

Then it was off into town to look at clothes in a nice new shop he'd seen. I did buy something - a summer suit for work - miraculously (as I'm not a clothes shopper at all) but decided I should get that and he could give me a bracelet from a jewellery shop across town.

So we headed off there and made a quick ' ten minutes only' detour into the Athaneum bookshop to look for a book that Pal wanted. I'd only been in there three minutes when my book-lover syndrome kicked in and I spotted a book I absolutely had to have. A piece of jewellery would have been more romantic as a present from Buddy but, well, this book just leapt off the shelf at me so that was it.

Can anyone guess what subject the book was on?
(No, you great wit, nothing to do with x)

And it's not on gardening either... Follow this link to some more pics of those flowers: picpicc