Sometimes it doesn't take much.

Today is my birthday.(OK, keep the excitement down to a dull roar). At my advancing age it's become something I'd rather ignore.  This year I have struggled with it. No particular reason; a combination of things.  Post holiday blaahs, winter, being underemployed right now with not much work about and friends all being tied up with other things.

It all turned around in the early hours of the morning, however.  Unable to sleep I logged into my favourite new obsession: Twitter. And there it was. Only very short (even in terms of 144 character limitations) but oh so sweet.

"Happy birthday. Have a great one. R."  It made my day. Hell, my life is so uneventful right now it made my week, if not my month. The R. in the tweet is my current lust subject du jour -  Richard Hammond!  I had sent the Top Gear presenter a tweet the day before saying it was my  brithday and would it be possible to have a tweet from him. As he is constantly inundated with messages I had no real hope that anything would come of it . Then a couple of my lovely online friends stepped in and also tweeted him asking to wish me happy birthday and lo and behold he noticed one of them and did.

It's a simple thing.  No great effort on anyone's part.  But thoughtful gestures from friends and a celebrity who perhaps doesn't take it for granted or is mindful that fans are the reason he's where he is, took that little bit of time out of his busy shedule to send that message.  It cost no one anything. Yet it's made me ridiculously happy.  I had a grin from ear to ear when I read that message and I'm  still smiling.

So you don't need to spend vast amounts of money or make huge gestures. Sometimes it's just the little things that demonstrate that others are thinking of you that mean the most.

Thanks Cath, Elaine, Kim and thank you Richard Hammond.