I'm pleased to report that I've survived the recent celebrations and emerged at the other end another year older, but otherwise not too worse for wear.
Having dropped the car off Thursday morning for a service I opted for a bus ride home rather than risk being in town when the Tap opened which could have kicked off the partying for Steve's 50th a little earlier than planned.
As it was, three of us met up at Cleethorpes Bowl where contrary to some of my earlier experiences there, we had a great time. The staff were friendly and helpful, not in the slightest bothered that we'd arrived one short of our booking and were quite happy to let us extend our booking for another hour or so. Despite my horrific start, I was as surprised as anyone to make an expected comeback to win one of the games. From then on, it was back to catch up with the others in the Tap, grab some food, sink a few ales and you can probably guess the rest from there.
Fortunately, my autopilot had kicked in early on Thursday night so I was able to surprise Mum by taking her up on her invitation to meet her in town for my birthday breakfast the following morning. It's certainly the first birthday I can remember sitting down in a bar to a cooked breakfast and a pint of real ale at 9:00 in the morning and enjoyable as it was, it's not something I think I'd want to make a habit of, although there were clearly plenty of other people there who thought otherwise.
Ever conscious of the celebrating that lay ahead, I decided again to head for home after just the one pint and returned to the Tap mid afternoon for another great meal and some more celebratory drinks. It had worked out quite well being Andy's leaving do too, so between the two of us we'd assembled a good crowd of well wishers. [Quite] A few beers later and I was on my way home again, mixed kebab in hand for the second night running. Well, at least you get salad with it.
Yesterday, Andy was out for another session with some of the guys who hadn't made it the night before, but I'm afraid I was beaten. Not physically beaten (although it felt like it first thing Saturday morning), but there was just no way I wanted to even look at a pint, let alone face the idea of another full day in the pub.
I'd like to say a quick thanks to everyone for the numerous greetings over the past few days either in person, by card, text, email or comment on here and now, here I am having reached 42, which apparently is the answer to life, the universe and everything. Personally I'm just grateful that I didn't have Zaphod's extra head over the last couple of mornings...
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