Today is National Caramel Day. – I don’t know where? Everywhere, I guess? Are you prepared? Do you have a box of caramels, robed in chocolate, soft and sticky enough to rip a filling out? Are you planning on making caramel sauce for your lunch? Salted Caramel ice cream for your tea? A sneaky Curly Wurly?

Who decides what day is what?  I mean, is it someone’s job? Can you pick anything? I think this might be the job for me.

Could we have National Pyjama day – I’d be really good at that. No, damn – I Googled it and that ones on the 13^th May. How about National drink tea day ?  I personally choose to celebrate this every day, but a quick Google and that one’s taken as well – Thursday 21^st April.  It seems I might not be very good at this job after all, what with the lack of originality of my Day suggestions

Today is also First Contact day – when in 2063 Vulcans first make contact with Earth. For Trekkies it’s a chance to get your Star Fleet Uniform out of the wardrobe, practice your Vulcan neck pinch and instruct the woman at the shop to Live long and prosper.

Potentially combining the two days, you could do this with a caramel in you mouth. To be honest she already thinks you’re weird – sputtering over a toffee while you try to pull your fingers into a Vulcan salute is not gonna make much a difference at this point.

And while we are at it, Today is also National Read a Road map day (as opposed to what, wear it ?)  I have to admit, I do love a map. In another life I used to lead kids up the local hills and mountains for their Duke of Edinburgh training – this was my job; I didn’t just drag kids up hills like some weirdo.

Admittedly they were using OS maps, but it was always fascinating to watch the pecking order in the group change. The big hard lad, local bully struggling with the cardio, would suddenly plummet in status next to the wee wiry kid who could read the map and get them all home again – even if it only lasted while they were up the hill.

Recently travelling through central London was certainly easier with Sat-Nav but I admit to a flurry of nostalgia for the anxious flicking of the A to Z and the ensuing argument that I definitely said turn right!

There’s something about the nostalgia of old maps, isn’t there, especially if its somewhere you know. Seeing the roads shift, the markers that you recognise swim in and out of time. It’s the same with photos of your hometown from a time long ago – a nostalgia for a place you cannot remember but recognise now.

I’m resting in bed today, (though National stay in bed day was March 28^th and national Reading in bed day is not until 31^st July.)

Today I will be celebrating, sat in my Star Trek uniform, sucking on toffees and planning my route to the shops for when I am up and at ‘em again.

Live long and prosper, sweeties.