You were only twenty when I met you, and once you’d got past the terror invoked by a short person with a lot of blonde hair and a speech rate of thirty words per second, we got on quite well, really, quite quickly. I bought you a Horace Silver CD as a birthday present after I’d missed your birthday party, and some time soon thereafter we were as one, living in each other’s pocket from the very start. Here we are, quite some time later, and we have a daughter, two insane cats, some chooks and a chaotic little house that is stuffed to the gunnels with our plans, our dreams, and, frankly, rather a lot of mess (just who is it that keeps breaking in at night, making a disaster area of our entire house, creating shedloads of washing-up, and then silently departing, I ask?), and I couldn’t imagine a better partner for what my life has become.

Happy birthday, Quercus.