Birthday Haul

Birthdays are marvellous, especially when you have got a lovely girlfriend. The picture is of the present diorama that awaited me on my arrival in London. Yes, there were enough gifts to be turned into a display. I thought the stars and balloons were an especially nice touch.

The presents were excellent too because they were all incredibly thoughtful. Almost every one related to some private joke or secret and as such they were perfect gifts. The giant fake diamond is especially good and I shall be treasuring it in the way that one should with perspex gems the size of your fist. I should probably rig up some sort of lasers to protect it. I'm also currently wearing my WW2 style biker goggles because they are just too cool to not wear.

The birthday event, involved an marvellous candle-lit meal at a lovely restaurant and then on to a house party in East London. The trip to East London was a bit fraught, buses kept changing their route after we had got on them and then locating the party was a bit tricky. Luckily a naked man leaning out of a window directed us to the right door and we found the bash. The party was in full swing and everyone was in fine fettle, but at about 3am we were starting to fade so we made our way home. The trip back was remarkably easy in comparison and thus the birthday celebrations ended.

It was a brilliant birthday and now I'm lounging in a bed trying to do some work while eating Chunky Monkey ice cream. Yes being 28 is marvellous.

Country living, pros and cons

Here is a run down of the various merits of living in the countryside so far. I mean the proper countryside, not just some rubbish rural town.

Pro - Zero crime. Not only does this mean that you sleep better at night but that it costs peanuts to insure things like motorbikes and cars. It's even cheaper if you live somewhere with loads of lovely garage space and even a boat shed that could store hundreds of bikes.

Con - Night Life. Everywhere is miles away, so stumbling home from the pub is more of a hike that an pleasant amble. The nearest pub is about three miles away and is crap. Still I might give it when I get desperate. They have a dart board, or at least they used to.

Pro - Clean Air. It really is far more fresh out here, and I don't miss the thick smog of urban life. London isn't that bad really, but if you get the tube you get this weird black dust on your clothes and that can't be good.

Con - Public Transport. You have to have a car or a bike in the countryside to get about. The nearest bus stop is miles away and runs a daily bus. Yes one a day. It used to be one a week, so I suppose that is a sort of improvement.

Pro - Food. We have a garden here, full of vegetables. I just dug up some potatoes and picked some beans. We are talking food yards rather than food miles. It is excellent.

Con - Food. You can't get Dim-sum in the West Country. Not at all. I'm not sure if it is part of some ancient by-law or just the crapness of being West of Bristol. Even if you don't agree with Starbucks the only opened recently in Exeter, about a decade after the rest of the country.

Pro - Geese. Everywhere you go on the farm you are watched by geese. Watching them back is one of life's great pleasures. They are quite tame, which isn't to say they won't bite you but if you hold out a bit of bread they will at least bite that first.

Con - Social Scene. I've never been one for young farmers after having worked at some of their events in my youth. The countryside is a lovely place to live if you are settled down but as a young chap about town it's not so great. Maybe I could start a sideline in importing lovely girls into the countryside, there is definitely a gap in the market.

Pro - Shops. The clothes shops down here are awful, apart from country wear of course but since I've got a full set of shooting gear I don't have much of a reason to by any more. The lack of good shops is excellent because it means I won't pop out and buy a suit in a moment of weakness.

Con - Cocktails. Supplies are limited, and the quality is very low, very very low. Louche's law of cocktails states that anywhere that offers cocktails by the jug will serve awful cocktails. You can only get them by the jug around here.

Pro - It's New. After having lived in London for so long the countryside is refreshing change. Admittedly I've only been here for a few days so it currently feels like holiday.

Con - The countryside can't be that great, or I would have stayed here rather than bolting for London the moment I could.

Hmmm.

Strangely familiar

The final restaurant visit was extremely jolly. Through luck more than careful planning I'd managed to save the best place for last. Hurrah. It wasn't all easy though, we managed to order the largest starter the world has ever seen and it would have been more then enough for us. Actually, Piqued (who joined me) has already covered this so just read his account, it was a jolly affair.

The waitress told me I looked familiar, I've had four people do that to me in the last three days. It's very strange. Perhaps my hair has now got long enough that I look faintly reminiscent of David St Hubbins from Spinal Tap or perhaps there was an episode of Crime Watch I missed but recently strangers think I'm familiar and it troubles me.

I'm not sure what one is supposed to say in response to 'you look familiar'. One of the International Party Girls said I looked familiar but after an hour of rum fuelled questioning she was no closer to the reason why. Maybe I should say to these people 'oh yes, you owe me five pounds' and thus I could use this strange effect to pay off various credit card bills and things.

Gout and Chips

I've been testing restaurants for days now. The feature I'm working on is focused on a type of food that is extremely fatty and meat focused. I think I ate so many ribs yesterday it gave me nightmares. No really, I had horrible dreams full of meaty products that glistened with menace.

It reminds me faintly of that scene in Matilda where the kid is forced to eat all the chocolate cake as punishment but manages it and wins. Except I'm not winning, instead I'm feeling rather unwell from eating so much BBQ sauce and chips. Still tonight is the last day of it, by sun-down I will have eaten at the last place I need to and I can enter a whole new world of eating habits where a chap can have a light salad for a meal, or possibly something interesting on wholemeal toast.

Still, even with the rather strange diet it is a rather fun job, I wonder how one gets this as a regular gig.