Many of you may have noticed that at the end of each of my blog entries I always put a quote or famous song lyrics, I choose each of these quotes very carefully and they quite often represent my mood, situation or something that has tickled me. Now, I fancy a bit more interaction from this blog so want to ask you all for your favourite quotes? For the full list of all my quotes see my wesbite. Please leave your quotes in a comment, the winning quote will recieve the greatest honour of being published in my next blog entry! Of course in writing about this subject in this blog entry I have just put the pressure on for which quote I choose for it, here goes…

“Crikey means gee whiz, wow!” –Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter

This is a blog of gratitude to all those who made my birthday ’surprise’ yesterday so special (when I say ’surprise’ I mean ‘ever so slightly advertised by Ben’). I had a great time seeing some old faces (when I say ’some’ I mean ‘one’ old face, Sarah Wallis) (and when I say ‘old’ I mean ‘I have not seen for a while’, not ‘haggard and droopy’). Run of events…

• 19:30 Myself and the ladiez, Claire, Julie, Alli pile into Lisa’s Car, with the rear tires rubbing on their wheel arches we drive off to the Akash curry house, Albert Road, Southsea.
• 20:00 Meet Ed, Jon and grab our table in the restaurant.
• 20:10 Ben, Sarah, Rob, Simon and Jane park along side us around the table and the poppadom cracking activities commenced! I decided to order a curry which I had never had before, a Chicken Biryani (I am adventurous like that!), much to my surprise when the curry arrived, in the middle of it was sitting a whole boiled egg! never the less it was very nice, and it did not take very long until there was nothing left on my plate.
• 22:00 Few pints down, pay our bill and rumble back to Ben and Julie’s for another surprise. The banging which was going in the kitchen earlier in the day was in fact Claire and Julie taking their stress out on a packet of biscuits in order to make the base for a Banoffee Pie/Birthday Cake (my favorite Pudding!).
• 23:00 I opened my cards and presents, a book of facts from Rob, a board game from Ben, Julie and Sam and a vase and little rubber lizard from Lisa. The remainder of the evening was spent with everybody playing a crazy party game whilst rolling around on the floor exclaiming how utterly bloated they were.
• This morning I woke up almost crying because I did not want to get up for work, Claire soon sorted me out with a nice cup of coffee and some special birthday presents from her.

Thank you all for a grand evening and also thank you to Ricky and Laura who, although were unable to join us because of tiredness due to baby growing activities, were with us in spirit.

What I have learnt recently: In Chicago a by-law states that it is illegal to fish whilst sitting on a giraffe’s neck.

“You! Cake or death?” –Eddie Izzard, Dress to Kill Stand-Up Comedy Show

Right now I have been banished from any involvenent in the goings on this afternoon. Everybody is being secretive, sneaking in and out of Ben and Julie’s kitchen and muttering things like ‘oh wots-er-name may be here later’, ‘oooh I don’t know what we are doing tonight’ and ‘Josh has offered to be our babysitter’.

Now, bearing in mind it is my birthday tomorrow and the fact that Claire and Ben were organising a ’small dinner’ for me, I can only guess that things have snowballed somewhat and that there may be a small army of people turning up for some curry tonight, whether they are coming because of the food or because it is my birthday is not really known!

Things are really a bustle, a number of plastic carrier bags are passing through the house, there is a great deal of banging going on in the kitchen and there is whispering to the max, Sam Stan is also making his hunger known.

Well I best get off now as I am being a bit anti-social on the computer and, if I don’t start talking to my friends, I may not be doing anything exciting tonight!

“Of course, the real reason for the lack of interest in Airfix might be that the paint always ended up on the carpet and you always found the pilot as a spare part just after sealing the cockpit” –Martin Veitch, The Inquirer