Haruki Murakami is my favourite author. I have all his books in German and in English. Sadly I don’t speak Japanese otherwise I would have them all in the original language too. The book ‘Birthday Girl’ is only available in German at the moment. It was on pre-order on Amazon.de and arrived last Saturday. It’s a short story with illustrations. It’s about a girl that works in a restaurant. The mysterious owner has his dinner delivered every night at the same time by the manager. One night the manager is taken ill and she is asked to take the dinner to the owner. It happens to be her 21st birthday as well. She knocks on his door and he opens it and asks her to sit down. In the conversation their having she reveals that it’s her birthday that day. He grants her one wish…one wish only, that can’t be taken back and she has to live with the consequences of that wish. The story never reveals her wish. It stays a mystery.

If I had one wish just one wish…call me shallow…I would like to be a size 16 (UK) and stay that forever. I don’t want money, but I think going back to the size I used to be before all the surgery and medications would make me very very happy. I know it’s really shallow and selfish but if I had one wish, I could live with the consequences of being healthier and slimmer. What would your wish be? A personal one? I know we all want world peace and all that. I want to know your personal wish. Just one and the consequences it would have you could live with???

5 years ago I was a size 16.