Oops!

What can I say? It’s been almost a week now since my last post, and doesn’t time slip away fast the older you get? Part of it is getting into the habit of sitting down every evening to write a blog, and making sure it gets done. A couple of nights this past week I have been getting into bed and suddenly remembered that I forgot to do it, then the same happened again the following night.

Apart from all that, it was my birthday at the weekend and I have been rather busy as a result!

Saturday was spent watching the qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix, after which we went shopping, getting a last minute present for one of our friends’ children for their birthday party on Sunday that my daughter was invited to, and I had to go to the bank to get the money arranged for the fun day on 4th May. Nearly £400 in coins is rather heavy!

In the evening we went out to dinner at Genghis Khan’s in Brighton – one of my favourite places to eat. It’s quite different in that you select what you want to eat in terms of meat, herbs/spices, and sauces (including things like sesame oil, black bean sauce, sweet and sour, etc), then take it to the cooking area where they cook it for you. You can go up as many times as you like and choose whatever combination you like, so you can have several different dishes, and if you don't like one of your creations, you can just get a new bowl and start over.

And we had plenty of beer to wash it down with!!!

Sunday was my birthday, and I got jumped on by my children, not quite at stupid o’clock, but not far off – I am sure in years to come they will start to surface later than me, but while they are still young they tend to start wandering around from about 6am.

My presents were: a new snooker cue from my wife (although I had to go and buy it!), a Jeremy Clarkson DVD from my son, a Rihanna CD from my daughter, and Jeremy Clarkson books, Chris Brown CD, bike pump and vouchers from other members of my family. I put the music on my phone on Monday before I went out to play snooker in the evening, and I have tested the bike pump and of course the cue – not terribly successful with it in my first frame, but we won the two doubles games we played – more about the snooker league another time.

I ran the children to the Bouldering Academy which they have recently started, while my wife made cakes for work on Monday. That was for 2 hours, then we had some lunch and started watching the Formula 1 coverage, then my son had his St George’s Day Parade, which took up most of the afternoon, and my daughter went to her friend’s birthday party for another 2 hours. While everyone was out I took the opportunity to play some World of Warcraft, and soloed Wailing Caverns during my exploration of the Barrens on Kalimdor. I got back to the Druid at the start just as everyone returned and managed to kill the big boss and earn the achievement, then hearthed out to Shattrath to clear my bags and repair before logging off for a few hours.

Monday was back to work, but as I had cakes and a cue to get to work I had a small dilemma as my wife needed the car too, so I drove to work and she took the car away, and came back later to pick me up. The cue travelled in both directions as I had an away match so needed it for that, and Tuesday I went to work again in the car, with the same arrangement as Monday as the car was needed again.

Wednesday I was back on the bike!

And Noorul Choudhury got his marching orders from Sir Alan in The Apprentice