Birthday boy

Well after many, many pieces of advice (and they will all come in for anniversaries and Christmases to come), I found a present to suit the boy. A video camera that he can attach to his helmet, when cycling skiing or erm even swimming. An enormous sigh of relief to discover that I made the right choice....it was opened straight away and taken to school to film hoodlum things. I felt I was GOOD DAD for taking him breakfast in bed - it's just that he's not used to me standing in his door and bellowing his name to wake him up...so the poor lad fair hit the ceiling in shock/fright.

The evening was taken up with a trip to Brixton to see Doves (not THE Doves, evidently they don't like that). We were accompanied by Auntie Gwen who probably describes it far better than me. Even if I did enjoy torturing her by insisting we drove with the roof down, and could feed her paranoia that everyone was looking at us. The boy brought his best mate from school and a jolly time was had by all; even if the journey (in both directions) was a little more challenging than it should have been. Ag may have missed out some of the highlights - passing through 'Ackney Lay'on and Dawstun, cruising past my favourite strip club...not that I've ever been there, I just like the neon sign, and being waved at by a rather large man who felt the need to stop his BMW alongside ours (he was travelling in the opposite direction) and raise his middle finger in greeting.

The strangest thing about the gig...and it was a good one for sure...was the constant stream of people heading out to either the bar or the toilets...or perhaps it was both. Any ho, I managed to restrain myself from telling them all to sit down and just enjoy the music. Of course, I was only jealous because as driver I couldn't indulge.

So that's one birthday over for another year. Grandma in Cyprus is next...fortunately, no present buying challenges there. But I do hope that for the first time in living memory I'll remember to send her card in time. I won't but I can hope...I think she knows better and has come to realise that her offspring are an ungrateful bunch