I had big plans for Sandra’s birthday this year – or at least many small plans that would add up. Unfortunately, most of them failed.

The idea was to spread out a number of things that she was craving over the week. The list included an Indian dinner, salsa dancing lessons, tiramisu and quality new earphones for teaching her classes.

We had noticed two salsa schools near home, and I was determined to do the leg work to arrange our first class. Sandra doesn’t need lessons, but I’m still awkward beyond the basics, so we thought that learning together would help. The first school turned out to be a dance academy that required auditions to enter. Not for us. The second doesn’t have an obvious front door (it’s above restaurants) and hadn’t updated their website in 2 years, but the facebook page advertised lessons starting soon. Unfortunately, by Sandra’s birthday they hadn’t responded, and they still haven’t.

I went to the tech centre to find the earphones. Sandra needed something with a microphone that would last all day and wouldn’t be too hot on her ears. Lasting all day meant a cable, and not too hot meant preferably earphones like those made for a phone. I bought the best quality ones I could find, but when we tested them, Windows couldn’t pick up much sound from the microphone. They worked fine on Linux and on my phone, but that was no help for Sandra, so we ended up going back a few times over the following weeks and battling with the shopkeepers to get help finding the right earphones.

We wanted to order an Indian meal a few weeks before her birthday, but the only place with a decent menu wasn’t answering the phone, so I promised her that I’d sort something out for her birthday. I contacted them through their web page and asked whether they’d be open on the night of 6/10. ‘Yes,’ they said. ‘Send us the time and number of people’ and they’d book us in. We turned up at the restaurant wearing our best outfits, only to find all the lights off. I looked on google maps and found they have 2 locations in Medellin, so presumably it was the other that was open. I wrote to check, but they still haven’t responded weeks later.

Never mind, I thought. I’d done some research and discovered that Crepes & Waffles, one of Sandra’s favourite restaurants, had tiramisu. I’d planned to order it on the following night, but there was a C&W right across the road from the Indian restaurant, so we might as well go tonight. We ordered our favourite dishes and when time came for dessert, I ordered the tiramisu rather than our usual small waffles. A few minutes later, when I was finally satisfied that one of my gifts would work out, the waitress came back to say that there was no tiramisu tonight.

Thankfully Sandra appreciated my efforts as much as she would have the gifts, and we enjoyed each other’s company. I ordered a tiramisu the next day, and left her to eat the whole thing. She felt sick before she finished.

I managed to surprise her a couple of days later by buying some prosciutto, baby spinach and a few other things to make pre-dinner nibbles of the kind she might have had in Australia. Happy birthday, Libélulita.