Who needs a big family to have a good time...


I don't know if she's doing a crocodile impression or just trying to slap my Mum, but either way I think we've got a Shirley Temple tribute act on our hands. Somebody get my agent on the phone.

Anyhoo, numbers might have been down this year, but my birthday meal was still a roaring success. If you ignore the dead fly in the garlic bread and the £70 parking ticket. The important thing though, is that I had a good time. I also had cake...

That's my Mum ironically pointing out that I haven't phoned her since I got a job.

As for presents, I got some CDs, a pack of three sleep-suits which are clearly too small for me, and a memory card for my camera. So I can take a lot more photos of Lisa now. It'll be her stretch marks next. Amongst the CDs, I was most pleased with the album 'Lemon Parade' by Tonic, featuring (as I'm sure anyone reading this will remember), Jeff Russo. Unfortunately, despite buying the album for me, my Mum claimed she'd never heard of him. The evidence would suggest otherwise.

So having opened my presents and explained to everyone who Jeff Russo is, we headed down to Prezzo at the marina for my birthday meal. It started well when my niece found a dead fly in the cheese on top of her garlic bread, but fortunately they didn't make us pay extra. They didn't knock anything off the bill either, but they did agree to give us another one, minus the insect accompaniment, all at no extra cost. Fortunately the rest of the meal was very nice, although we did have to keep stopping to answer the three waitresses who insisted on asking us if everything was ok about once a minute. They obviously knew something we didn't, and were just waiting for us to find the dead rat in the pasta.

Anyhoo, it was a thoroughly enjoyable occasion. By the end of it, Lisa had excruciating backache from sitting in one place for an hour and a half, and my niece had managed to lose the stylus from her Nintendo DS, but my Mum and I were both happy. Until we got back to my flat and discovered that she'd forgotten to display a visitor's permit in her car. But still, amongst the agonising pain, lost property, and seventy pound parking fine, I had quite a good day. Roll on thirty-six.