And like yesterday, I keep thinking it’s Friday. Bits of work done today, translations of reviews, transcripts of crazy people talking, bits of code updated, people emailed. And I keep leaving my daily photo until late afternoon when it’s getting dark outside and in.

The good news is though that there’s leftover no-cook lemon pie from yesterday.

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 is how I was earlier in the day, with two knitting needles, a crochet hook and yarn all being orchestrated in my hands. I’d dropped a stitch, found out how to pick it up, but evidently wasn’t doing something quite right. I tried several times picking up and making the loop, but eventually ended up with an extra stitch on the needle and the hole remained. So I went back a few rows to where life was good, managed to drop the correct extra stitch and then carried on without a problem - once all the stitches were back on the needle the right way round of course. Someone had better buy this damn hairy scarf when it’s finished.

It’s been raining most of the day - at times quite heavily. I’ve been here in my office. Content to let the outdoors be outdoors and me be indoors for today.

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!