At times I was not sure Colin even understood or remembered it was his birthday. Still we all tried and persisted. Perrins very kindly produced a cake with a candle to blow out, and the staff all appeared in his room with it this afternoon to sing the usual salutation! They also made some chocolate mousse knowing that cake would be difficult for Colin to eat. I had tried this earlier, as the Octogenarian had also been busy baking, but it is difficult to get the consistency of mashed cake into cream right for his palette, and so this wasn't successful.
However, during the day there were certainly windows of clarity, where Colin understood the conversation and was trying to join in, albeit it being difficult to understand his diction much of the time. Thank you to all of you who sent greetings in whatever format you thought of - I shall try to remind him tomorrow of today's event by re-reading them to him.
Jane