Birthday Meal! (Blog 319)

Yesterday, me and dad drove to my brother’s house to pick him up and his (almost) four year old daughter. Why is her age significant? Because it makes her mad skills all the more impressive. But I’ll move onto that later. Before we all drove to the restaurant I received my sibling’s presents. CDs as requested! A pessimistic person would say he picked them up from a charity shop for £2, but apparently they were bought second hand from Amazon, which isn’t quite so bad. The way the cases were shut with sticky stuff confirms the purchasing method. I’ve never seen CDs packaged that way in Oxfam, anyway. In fact, I’ve seen a few charity shop CD cases with nothing in them. My niece also drew me a first rate happy face, but her mad skills didn’t end there.

After that business, we all got in my dad’s car, and as I was the birthday boy, I got to sit in the front again. Very cool. The drive wasn’t particularly long which was fortunate, as my niece kept staring at me, making me feel uncomfortable. No only joking. In the foodery, I quickly found out that Indian vegetables are rather tasty. Usually the only veg I can tolerate eating are cucumbers (possible because they don’t really taste of anything), but Indian onions and I think lettuces are certainly not a chore to eat. Great stuff. Popadoms were also available very soon and you guessed it, as I was the birthday boy I ate most of them. Celebrate in style. No really, I love popadoms.

I ordered a double Jack Daniels, and after that, a single (as recommended by my dad) Johnny Walkers. As you may have expected from me, I checked more than once that the drinks weren’t mixed with Coca Cola. And we all know the ‘soft’ drink (yeah, more like class A drug) drives me mental. Not a good way to spend any birthday, or indeed any day. Though if I ever go to jail for filling out a tax return very badly all I have to do is order a coffee, and I get treated better (hopefully) in a mental home. I think getting an accountant is a good idea.

After the light munchables and starters, we got the proper food. For a main course, I got a chicken naga, which I was told was like a vindaloo. I didn’t think it was made of the hottest peppers of all time or whatever as advertised (in more or less that wording), but it was fairly hot. When the meat was all gone, I ate spoonfuls of the sauce like it was nothing which you would expect others to find impressive, actually it was perceived as a bit unusual. And by that I mean creepy, which I think is unfair. Last year I went to a far more famous restaurant, but was the meal yesterday any worse? Nope. That’s not too much of a surprise though as the prices were roughly the same. Not sure what’s going on there.

I talked about my RPG plans to my brother in the best way I could without sounding like an idiot. Not an easy task for a game that’s based on finding a long lost spoon. Game title ‘Dying Man’s Wish’ made it sound more sensible which is something, I was going to call it Spoon Troopers. When everyone was finished nibbling, we played a very short game of ‘I Spy’. Perhaps short because the toddler didn’t fully understand the rules. I didn’t see a monkey, anyway. More impressively, she showed everyone the educational book she bought with her. I have to be honest, she recognised some animals I didn’t, such as hippo. Yep, I’m 34 and I didn’t recognise a hippo. In my defence though, it was a cartoon animal. :)

There was also a crossword in the book. I thought ‘rhinoceros’ was a bit advanced but to be fair, that was already written, I guess as an example. Still, how do you expect someone of that age to read it?? Me and my brother then got a Baileys. Yum, yum. Though when we left the establishment, I found it hard to walk straight which was embarrassing. I could touch my nose with my finger though, I tested it later. On the drive home, I stopped off at a petrol station to get some chocolate and a ginger beer. Not the BEST way to get hydrated, as it would only make me feel sick. I have to be honest, I was borderline immobilised for a long and not happy. My word. Bluuuuuurgh. Bye!