SUDDENLY a landmark birthday is on the horizon – in a couple of years – 30 months in fact – I will be 40.

It is not something I am very happy about. I can’t believe that it is 20 years since I left school this year. I don’t understand where the time has gone. One minute I was taking my driving test the next I am getting excited about buying a fruit tree.

I’ve decided that I’m going to have to put it to the back of my mind and hope it all goes away.

This week my friend Liz who is big in public relations in the west of the county celebrated her birthday – somewhere in the early 30s - with an intimate dinner – I had a roast pork Chinese style with a mound of rice and soft drink what with the car.

And this weekend my oldest fan Noreen is celebrating 90 years on the planet. Now that is a landmark.

Which, in a roundabout way, brings me to The Shard - another impressive landmark - where I am due to go up with my old friend Michelle on Saturday.

I am quite excited about the prospect though my sister Claire, who is currently sunning herself though she needs a cardigan in the evenings in Tenerife, asked why I was going up such a tall building when I don’t like heights.

I’ve dismissed her concerns as mere scare-mongering. I mean, it can’t be that high surely, after all, they put Prince Andrew over the edge of it and he’s important.

Anyway Michelle and I are off for lunch afterwards so we can get over the adrenaline rush associated with fear with a gin and tonic and a bottle of Chablis if we need to.

In the meantime I’m anxious about The Queen aren’t you?

Partly because they don’t put people into hospital for a laugh – certainly not her – and also because she must be most annoyed with everyone talking about her health.

I even heard one reporter who had been unnecessarily and hurriedly despatched to the scene last week simply, it seems to me, to prove they have the technology to broadcast from a central London street, talking about a “possible unknown underlying health issue” with, from what I could gather, no inside knowledge to back it up.

I don’t like this national obsession with health do you?

Nowadays when you ask someone how they are – previously a simple conversational device - they actually tell you their latest health issue. People are always telling you how they feel and what there symptoms are but manners have gone out of the window so I suppose it’s no surprise.

Let’s hope The Queen is back on form soon – in a few short years she’ll be celebrating 90 years, just like Noreen.