The birthday blog!

(Yes, its the long awaited birthday edition of 'Simon Says'. With the signature '3 days late' publication and the superfluously extravagant intro picture here it is..)

The lead up to my birthday included a round of crazy golf with some friends followed by a trip with my girlfriend to see Russell Howard - the comedian off BBC2's'Mock the Week'. Russell was his usual energetic self, at one point getting some ill kid to come up on stage to be fed a paracetamol by a random woman twice his age. He introduced two other acts who had varying levels of success.

The first was some young lad who had just tunnelled his way out of Uni. His main joke seemed to be based around him looking like a lesbian. The audience seemed to find him so funny they didn't laugh. Mercifully he was followed by a funny New Zealander who picked on some girl who claimed to be from Derbyshire yet had no actual idea where it was.

The next day was my birthday and started with a train trip to Cheltenham. This was to go up for a flight with my sister who flies for the Military. At least seeing some of her manoeuvres that seems the only rational explanation. She was so confident that her hands barely seemed to touch the steering wheel.


the pilot checking all the little buttons are working before take-off

She offered me the chance to fly it for a bit which, not being sure which side of the sky I was meant to fly on, I turned down. It was a gloriously sunny day though and the view of the earth from that of a bird's was a unique and stunning experience.
After about an hour or so we landed on the Sandown airstrip in the Isle of Wight.



After a short walk we arrived at the beach and went paddling in the sea.


In no way is this picture for bragging purposes.
Nope, not at all..

After an even more scenic flight back to Cheltenham I made the return train by breaking the speed of sound to the station. When I got home I was exhausted by an action-packed couple of days, so I had a Chinese takeaway with my parents and girlfriend. A chilled out end to a breathless day.