This past weekend saw me hit yet another milestone year older and after a week of software upgrades, video editing, family issues times two, health issues being investigated, I reached my birthday with my brain about to pop.

But would you believe that it was wisdom from my eldest who succeeded in returning me to terra-firma and with a different approach to this week.

So THE best birthday present came from my very own children (see image ).

I’d spent my birthday playing a Nintendo Switch game, literally hoovering down copious amounts of chocolate and just plain enjoying getting killed 19 times (yes, my son counted each one with a tone of how ‘uncool is my tech Mum getting killed on the easy levels’).

My kids absolutely loved doting on me – my son not so much and after taking out the rubbish, sweeping the downstairs, bringing me drinks while my feet were up, he began to grumble a little by afternoon. But his face when he saw my joy at opening their present was priceless and had carried him through the bulk of the day.

So by the evening, my daughter shared how she was getting worried about the kinds of things I was being drawn into – purely on the basis that I failed to make clear to work colleagues and family members that I was reaching saturation point and was close to burnout. As she shared with me her concerns, she promptly piped up “I mean, Mum haven’t you noticed while playing a game that NOBODY takes on multiple side quests?!”

I giggled when she said this for two reasons:

1 – I actually realised in that very moment why I had been dying so quickly and so early in the games that my kids would whizz through unscathed

2 – Even in real life I was doing too much (was abit of a ‘duh’ moment I confess but one that I learnt from)

So as I start this week, I’ve resolved to ignore some of those phone calls and messages after work and only take on some once I have sat down long enough to catch my breath from work. I have a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday to get checked out to address some of the health issues that I have been ignoring due to being snowed under.

More importantly, the only side quest I shall be undertaking this evening will be the one that involves chocolate and getting slaughtered by a level 3 Bossman.