Birthday Boy

It's my birthday today. Blip was a present to me on my birthday last year, so my 1 year is about to come to an end. I don't honestly know if I will continue with this or not. It's been nice to get to know many of you a bit better, but then again ... it is very time consuming. I certainly will not be renewing my membership .... if anything, I'll just publish something every so often in the future .... not every single day as I have done so for the last 363 days!

Anyway ... this has been my exciting birthday to date and the events leading up to it .... last night, after I picked up my wife from the train station, we went to Argos to swap over a useless microwave for (hopefully) a better one. The useless one was Argos's own "Value" range .... not much value if it can't even heat up a cup of hot chocolate! I used up all my months Nectar points on that one, and so it didn't cost me any real cash. It's replacement cost double the price .... again I used up my Nectar points (I spend a lot on American Express cards). I ended up paying 50p for a £69.99 microwave. The young assistant was clearly embarrassed to ask me for the cash :-)

On the way back home, I beeped my horn at an idiot driver who was clearly not going to give way to me at a roundabout. Seconds later, I was pulled over by a traffic cop ... oh boy .... what now!

The cop asked me to get out of the car and said he would show me why he had pulled me over. He called me round to the back of my car and asked me what I could see. "It's filthy" I said. "Correct" said he (in a very Scottish accent). I asked him if this was an offense (obviously), and he stated it carried a £100 fine. He said that it was the dirtiest registration number he had ever seen (granted, I have not washed the car for at least 3 years).

He asked to see my driving license etc .... then he produced a pair of rubber disposable gloves and a cloth. "Guess what you're going to do with these" he said. (I didn't answer that one as my reply would probably have resulted in me getting arrested). "Clean it" said I (with a wee smile).

"Where were you born"? says he. "XXX XXXX in Scotland" says I. "OOOHH ... you've lost your accent" said he. Now I thought to myself.... just keep smiling and you'll be ok.

I cleaned up the plate and he let me drive off without a fine. Good man. I couldn't help think of all the speeding and dangerous drivers I had encountered that day, but ok ... dirty number plates is against the law ... heaven forbid I should speed and the camera fails to capture my reg plate number.

Another nerve racking day ended "ok".

Today, I took the kittens to the Vets in Peterborough and signed up for their Vacs4life scheme at £99.00 each. Since the local vets here charge typically £35 for vaccinations, this deal sounds pretty good value to me. I booked them in for their operation next month (NEUTERING).

What will happen tonight? Who knows, but whatever happens ... I'll be a year older.

Going out for a nice meal on Saturday with friends.

Well .... so far I have had birthday wishes from family, friends and .... Ikea and Subway. Subway are going to treat me to a free cookie of my choice. Best birthday gift so far :-)