Birthday blog
Christmas always has its risks. Drink driving always seems to surface, cold temperatures freeze the elderly and homeless but no-one has ever warned of the risks of answering the door to carol singers. Last week, Monday night was the time of the crime around 6pm when I heard the knock at the door. Having taken on a milkman for home delivery in the past two week I was expecting a call for payment. What appeared on the doorstep was the mono-toned voice of a David Beckham wannabe teenager trying to sing ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’. It was an uncomfortable feeling of watching someone sing right in front of you though my observation brought up two questions: 1) this carol singer looked about 19 and 2) how did he afford such a spangley, diamondique earring. I tried to interrupt his X-Factor failing Xmas song midway with my first observation quoting ‘aren’t you a little old for this’ – old person alert! – But he ignored it. After the one verse (thankfully) he answered my query to be 14 then stuck his had out expecting payment optimistically. The look on his face was a picture of shock as if the embarrassment he had endured for my entertainment was so worthy of cash payment. The fact was I didn’t have any change, I wasn’t prepared to show a bank note to him and ask for change plus he didn’t deserve it. I closed the door and immediately regretted the decision as he minced up the path towards Kerry’s car. A quick shout back at him to ask if he liked chocolate as payment encouraged the youth to answer, ‘what sort of chocolate’. Hey presto, one less car scratched by a disgruntled chrimbo carol –singing, cash strapped chav.
Other news from last week was another assault of my personality from someone at work. Perhaps I’ll explain this another time and get on to my birthday night out.
Warning, these next few lines are of a cheesy, happy nature: - Secrets and lies was the first half of Saturday as Kerry said no-one could make it to my birthday. So after the train journey of cursing all those ‘friends’ for not trying, we arrived at the Lowlander bar with all those people waiting for me as a surprise. You guys, you kill me! Happy me! Lots of cards and pressies plus lovely Belgium beer, chips and dips. Another small shock of the evening was that Paul and Sarah had arrived first out of everyone. It all started to add up from the signs of organising over the past month. Kerry hiding the laptop away from me, very little email comms from mates and Donna and Andy going to see Kev & Karol on the same weekend. I’m not normally this gullible.
Kerry had given me the tickets for the Blue Man Group show the previous night as well as her main birthday present of an All Saint shirt. Much to the amusement of the other as I wore it that night was the bendy wiring in the shirt. Seats were 3rd row from stage, ready with gunge proof overcoats. Thankfully, we weren’t asked to perform their ‘late-arrival’ joke like we did in Las Vegas (don’t you know). BMG are a trio of mime artists playing techno music using paint, rice crispies, gunge, plumbing pipes and a lot of toilet paper for a mixture of comedy and drumming. Some weak bladdered mates gave in throughout the performance and for the benefit of those who missed some of it especially near the end you missed…the best bit.
After the show I got to meet on the blue guys with photo taken by Kev and some blue handmarks as proof. Others also got fondled by the oversized smurfs. Kerry had expected a longer performance so we had to find a bar before our restaurant booking came up. Our first choice was a Kiwi bar but was rammed so headed opposite to Bar Aqura. More champers and beer until we could get our table at Fire and Stone, an unusual slant on a pizza restaurant. The menu read like a travel book full of world destinations as their pizzas were named after places like San Francisco, Bombay, Honolulu and Canberra. Unfortunately for Paul, there was his cheesy favourite of San Antonio, Ibiza. More drink meant a few casualties including Viv and Steve’s coats and Steve using Kev as a serviette. Getting the last train back to Southampton came too quickly and we got back home just before 2am. The only downer was Kev deleting all the photos of the night so just waiting for Sarah to come back with hers.
Other news from last week was another assault of my personality from someone at work. Perhaps I’ll explain this another time and get on to my birthday night out.
Warning, these next few lines are of a cheesy, happy nature: - Secrets and lies was the first half of Saturday as Kerry said no-one could make it to my birthday. So after the train journey of cursing all those ‘friends’ for not trying, we arrived at the Lowlander bar with all those people waiting for me as a surprise. You guys, you kill me! Happy me! Lots of cards and pressies plus lovely Belgium beer, chips and dips. Another small shock of the evening was that Paul and Sarah had arrived first out of everyone. It all started to add up from the signs of organising over the past month. Kerry hiding the laptop away from me, very little email comms from mates and Donna and Andy going to see Kev & Karol on the same weekend. I’m not normally this gullible.
Kerry had given me the tickets for the Blue Man Group show the previous night as well as her main birthday present of an All Saint shirt. Much to the amusement of the other as I wore it that night was the bendy wiring in the shirt. Seats were 3rd row from stage, ready with gunge proof overcoats. Thankfully, we weren’t asked to perform their ‘late-arrival’ joke like we did in Las Vegas (don’t you know). BMG are a trio of mime artists playing techno music using paint, rice crispies, gunge, plumbing pipes and a lot of toilet paper for a mixture of comedy and drumming. Some weak bladdered mates gave in throughout the performance and for the benefit of those who missed some of it especially near the end you missed…the best bit.
After the show I got to meet on the blue guys with photo taken by Kev and some blue handmarks as proof. Others also got fondled by the oversized smurfs. Kerry had expected a longer performance so we had to find a bar before our restaurant booking came up. Our first choice was a Kiwi bar but was rammed so headed opposite to Bar Aqura. More champers and beer until we could get our table at Fire and Stone, an unusual slant on a pizza restaurant. The menu read like a travel book full of world destinations as their pizzas were named after places like San Francisco, Bombay, Honolulu and Canberra. Unfortunately for Paul, there was his cheesy favourite of San Antonio, Ibiza. More drink meant a few casualties including Viv and Steve’s coats and Steve using Kev as a serviette. Getting the last train back to Southampton came too quickly and we got back home just before 2am. The only downer was Kev deleting all the photos of the night so just waiting for Sarah to come back with hers.
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