{"id":95,"date":"2023-11-03T09:46:58","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T09:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottysblog.com\/birthday-week\/"},"modified":"2023-11-03T09:46:58","modified_gmt":"2023-11-03T09:46:58","slug":"birthday-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottysblog.com\/home\/birthday-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Birthday week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, it was another good one! 55, can you believe it – always amazed to have made it to another milestone, even if it has unceremoniously thrown me into the slightly less than desirable 55-64 age band…<\/p>\n

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Lots of great social stuff including supper out to a Thai in Wimbers with J&R, plus cocktails at Hemingways first. Then a trip to my fave cinema, the Electric in Portobello Rd, to see The Great Escaper (true story of the war veteran who got out of his UK care home and went to the 70th anniversary DD landings celebrations in France, aged 90, under his own steam). Michael Caine & Glenda Jackson as his wife were a perfect pairing – very sweet story, and super comfy seats..<\/p>\n

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Then we had 14 – yes 14 – of the Dora neighbours round to watch the rugby World Cup final on Sat eve. Vast quantities of burgers, sauces, onions etc and it turns out they mostly drink wine when watching rugby so we now have a lot of leftover beers! Still, that's rarely an issue… H rented a projector so we could watch it in the white space, first time in 5 years of being here that we've tried it.<\/p>\n

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The girls next door then kindly made me a birthday cake, which I've eaten far too much of this week. Despite having mocks on, they really are very good neighbours! Still discussing within their family whether you put the 5 candles that spell HAPPY or the candles that spell BIRTHDAY at the front or the back of the cake. So I was wished 'birthday happy' several times.. <\/p>\n

Had a very good eve out with Sophie & Nicky to Kings Cross, where I took a punt on two random venues, both of which turned out to be top notch. SO impressed by the Cypriot barman at Bell & Viv who suggested I go 'off menu' when I asked which cocktails he recommended from the already quite interesting list. LOVE a bar person who can create stuff when you ask for 'something sour, without any member of the wine family in it'. First drink involved setting fire to mixed herbs and smoking the glass inverted about the little dish they were in. Second one was 'a riff on a Pina colada' – involving smoked coconut and some other magic… anyway, three v good drinks, so it was a good job that the little Paolina's Thai was BYO (we didn't as already sozzled!) Great food and dirt cheap, which for London these days is no mean feat..<\/p>\n

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Snuck in a trip to see Calendar Girls the musical at Wimbers Theatre – was meant to be with Liz T but her back was playing up so Fiona McA kindly stepped in. It was quite good – music co-written by Gary Barlow and some well known faces in it, e.g. one of the many Nolans – and we brought the average punter age down by about 10 years I reckon..<\/p>\n

And my old lady Jo bought me lunch at KFC in Southside Wandsworth, plus sent a really lovely trug of  cut flowers, so that was cute.<\/p>\n

Mr H & I spent the actual day together, with prezzies in bed (all fab!), my favourite breakfast of sausage & egg patty in a bagel to fortify us as we headed off to Nirvana spa for the afternoon, complete with a very good facial to top it off. We had a slightly crap dinner out that eve, but luckily were so full of all the birthdays food this week that it didn't matter!<\/p>\n

He is very excited about his new purchase of a Ninja Air Fryer (we are very behind the curve I suspect) – and did knock out some excellent chicken wings in it, after the initial test run of a jacket potato…<\/p>\n

And were out with Mark & Charlie at Jules' restaurant Hakata last night, where we were very generously spoilt by Jules – thank you matey.<\/p>\n

A more gentle weekend ahead – heading down to the lovely cottage to hang out with Janine & Ross in the back end of the storms (we hope) and maybe a spot of fireworks tonight, giant Shaun the Sheep trailing tomorrow and a roast lamb to look forward to Sat eve. What's not to love?!<\/p>\n

What a very good birthday – thank you so much for all the cards & prezzies you amazing people! <\/p>\n

And we appear to be off for the big 55 trip to India next week – must start packing soooooon… x<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, it was another good one! 55, can you believe it – always amazed to have made it to another milestone, even if it has unceremoniously thrown me into the slightly less than desirable 55-64 age band…                   Lots of great social stuff including supper out to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nBirthday week - Welcome to Scottys Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scottysblog.com\/home\/birthday-week\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Birthday week - 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