06:37

beep beep - beep beep

My phone wakes me. I’ve been here before. A text from my dear cousin: “Happy birthday. Sorry so early, but some of us start work before 10am!”

Oh ha-di-ha.

09:50

John rings on the home line; I’ve turned the work phone over to the guys for the day. He wishes me a happy birthday and then says “that’s it”. “Oh, I wasn’t sure if you were about to say ‘can you just…?’”, I say. “No, I’m not going to make you do any work,” he replies. “It’s hard enough at the best of times.”

A little love and respect on one’s birthday is always nice. Or so I hear.

This was my lunch today. I’m feeling a bit under the weather and didn’t feel hungry until I was over-hungry, meaning that by the time I’d got this made and the cheese had melted, I was all jittery and needed some sugar inside me, stat!

The surprise from Suzy yesterday turned out to be a trip up to London for very yummy Mexican food at Wahaca and then off to the Apollo Victoria to see Wicked.

We ordered the Wahaca selection to share, eliminating any need to make the difficult decision as to which dishes to order; this way we got a bit of everything. Now if a Wahaca chef could bring me a fresh huitlacoche quesadilla (chestnut mushrooms, melted cheese and huitlacoche) every day, that would be just dandy. A glass of that utterly drinkable wine would also be good.

After our leisurely nosebag we took the tube two stops to Victoria and it still wasn’t until we were stood in front of the theatre that I knew what my surprise was to be: the huge “Wicked” hoarding outside the theatre revealing the secret as large as could be.

It was a wonderful show and I was very jealous admiring of the powerful and impressive voices, especially that of the Wicked Witch herself. The finale of Act 1 was my favourite part. I thought it was incredible and it was pretty difficult to get to sleep last night with “Defying Gravity” running through my head over and over. Though admittedly I probably didn’t help matters by watching it in various versions on Youtube before finally heading off to kip.

On the train ride home at the end of the evening a pile of drunk boys literally fell into our carriage, singing, arsing about and generally being loud and, well, pretty funny. Their rousing anthem was that “Tonbridge boys are on the piss again”, which one or the other of them would then try to change to “Sevenoaks boys” in order - unsuccessfully - to cover their tracks. One boy settled down next to the family in front of us, which was fortunate for him as when we reached Tonbridge they were the only ones - eventually - able to persuade him that this was his stop and he needed to get off here. Meanwhile one of his friends was busy shaking hands with me and Suzy while we tried to shoo them off the train before it set off again for the next stop.

Mum and Dad were waiting in the car for us outside the station and as we drove off down the hill, Suzy spotted that one of the boys from the train was indeed keeping the promise he had loudly proclaimed back on the train. That he was “going to urinate everywhere“. Ah, the youth of today.

… meaning that I have no notion what’s planned. Suzy’s taking me out for an early birthday treat in a while. I need to look fancy and be at her house at about 4pm. Then we’ll be catching the train to … somewhere. To do … something. But I know we’ll be back after midnight, hence the early - though fathomless - post to make sure I post today for NaBloPoMo. I’ll add in a “Tiny Moment” photo when I’m back.

Later: it was a trip to London to see Wicked!

On Saturday 9th August Sam and John were married at Albury Park, Surrey. I have a very happy brother and a very happy sister-in-law (who are now in Hawaii, lucky dogs). Click the photo for the full set. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to Cologne.

* I’m running away at the weekend. Ok, not quite true. I’m flying away. There, that sounds much better. Suzy and I are off to Germany for a couple of concerts from the Meister. I’m sort of hoping that my new lens won’t have arrived by then, so I won’t need to decide whether or not to take it with me. By the way, short of putting my head in a bag, is there any way to avoid Boat Hair while on a boat?

* I thinned out my carrots. I thought I’d try transplanting the thinnings elsewhere to give myself a little extra carrotage. The floppy pile of carroty uselessness I’m now left with tells me that this was not possible.

* Sam had her hen night last Saturday, which was a fine affair in London. We had lesson in how to make shots and cocktails before dinner and dancing. Let it be noted that I pour a mean B52. Let it also be noted that drinking a glass of champagne on a fairly empty stomach makes it difficult to get up the stairs to the bar to have the lesson. Then drinking a shot, a cocktail and various “sips” of other people’s cocktails makes it even more difficult to get back down the stairs for the meal. Should this happen, allow Lauren to order for you.

* I rang the police the other day. Very exciting. You park your car for sale so that it’s blocking most of the footpath - the footpath that leads to the primary school - and I will soooo tell on you, sucker.

Last Sunday we had our Summer Party, blogged live by me and Lauren before the immense quantities of food we’d made and then consumed finally overcame us and we no longer had the ability to type.

I’d rented a very shiny, very heavy, very beeeyootiful lens to try out that day: a Nikon 70-200mm f2.8. So I went around scaring impressing my relatives with a piece of kit twice my size, taking photos of them sitting at the tables outside while, yes, I ate guarded the food indoors. That lens was so good, with such a nice little swishy noise as it focussed, that all day I had an argument going on in my head about whether I should buy one of my own or not. Sure, I’m lucky enough to be able to afford one, but where the hell would I keep it? Yes, the photos are fabulous, but you’re going to need a wrist transplant, etc…

I’d rented the lens from an absolutely brilliant company called Hire A Camera, who saved the day when the first company I’d gone to, Camerent, eventually conceded after actually, no, they couldn’t supply the lens. Sorry about saying we could and all that - and sorry about having a caveman answering our phone. The lovely people at www.hireacamera.com liked my feedback on their service so much they put it on their customer comment page. The only thing is that they asterisked my mention of C*******, possibly leading readers to wonder just what new and exciting swear word I’d used that would fit that many asterisks.

Oh, and apropos the food, I didn’t get any photos of it. But Lauren did. She also took photos with her new wide angle lens. And it’s about time she put them on Flickr and sent them to me. Here’s what she probably says to that:

Click on the photo for the rest of the party set