First things first. Happy Birthday Dad.

It�s interesting how my father turning 60 is making me contemplate the vagaries of age far more than any of my own birthdays.

For so many reasons Dad cannot possibly be 60. Or, more likely, 60 cannot be what I apparently perceive it to be.

I am a subscriber to the �50 is the new 40� school of thought, but clearly I hadn�t applied that to 60 as well. Until I began to contemplate Dad�s birthday.

Sure, his hair is now totally grey. But he still has it all and it�s not noticeably sprouting from ears and nose.

Sure, he goes to bed at 9pm most nights and likes an afternoon nap on the weekends. But he�s always done that, and he gets up at 5 in the morning, so he�s entitled.

He also runs around in the park playing football with my brothers and keeping up with the Munchkin better than Boofhead does. Yesterday he spent a hour in the pool with the Munchkin and four of the Munchkin�s friends � aged 6-12 � tipping them off inflatable toys and generally being energetic while the rest of us lazed by the pool in the sun drinking beer and generally being too tired to speak. We were too tired to speak because we�d been up until 3.30 in the morning at the birthday party, as had Dad.

I fell asleep at 7pm last night and struggled out of bed and into the office this morning. The Munchkin fell asleep on the couch last night and then refused to get up this morning because he was too tired to go to school. Dad, on the other hand, got up at 4am to catch a plane, and is working all day in the office before getting on another flight and heading to meetings and a formal dinner tonight.

So he�s not 60. Or if he is, then 60 is the new 50. Or perhaps 40.

And of that greeting card companies should take note. The 60th birthday cards currently available fit into two categories. The boring, overly sentimental, pastel coloured message cards that they make for every age and which are generally vomitus. And the �funny� cards, which appear to be pitched at 85 year-olds, not any actual 60 year old I know.

I bought Dad a 6th birthday card and added a �0�. It seemed so much more appropriate.

I also had so much fun putting together Dad�s birthday DVD, which he absolutely loved. With help from Boofhead, the Munchkin and Mary, I collected photos from the various decades and scanned them into the computer, putting them together with some captions and music (love imovies, by the way) and burned it on to a DVD that we showed at the party and gave to Dad as his present. It was a big hit. But even with all those photos and changes over the decades, 60 years still seems like too many.

Of course, his other present from the family was a canoe.