Leap year Angie celebrates her '˜14th birthday'

Miss Coombes was born on a leap year in 1960, so only gets to celebrate her big day properly when February 29 falls every four years.

She said: “It causes other people quite a lot of amusement because they say, ‘I have never met one of you before’.

“It does cause some issues with some internet sites. They don’t register February 29 as a real birthday so it changes it to the day before or after.

“It was very confusing as a child when everyone else had a normal birthday and I didn’t. I didn’t understand why there was an extra day there.

“When you say you’re born on the 29th of February it doesn’t click with some people. People say ‘happy birthday’ and I’ll have to remind them that it’s a ‘real’ one this year.

“I get a lot of texts and birthday cards from people I haven’t heard of since my last leap year. People always ask me about it and ask whether I’ve ever met anyone else with a leap year birthday.

“I’ve only known two other people who were born on a leap year.

“It’s typical that I wait four years for a birthday and it falls on a Monday!”

Miss Coombes, who lives in St Annes, would be 56 had she been born one hour later, on March 1.

She said: “My mum would always celebrate my birthday on March 1 since I was born at 11 o’clock at night.”

She added: “When I told my boyfriend, David, about my birthday he was quite surprised because at the time I was only around 11 or 12-years-old.

“He thought it was quite amusing.

“He tends to give my age in ordinary years rather than leap years to avoid awkwardness, but he does sometimes jokingly say that I’m only 13-and-a-half years old.

“He finds it funnier than I do.

“I’d like to make it to the ripe old age of 21. That means I’ll be able to have another 21st birthday! I think on my 18th and my 21st I’ll have a big party to celebrate.”