Mature yet mellow

33. A master number. A long player or LP. Jesus’ age when he was crucified. The amount of minutes the humans had before escaping the pursuing Cylons. The atomic number of arsenic. A mixed bag of meanings for the grand old age I turn tomorrow. After Ka’s birthday at the weekend, it’s now my turn and all I can do is remind myself it could be worse, I could be 34, which my dearest wife turned on Saturday.
Birthdays, and any celebrations of, have not exactly been on our minds of late, especially after the past months, but we forced ourselves out on Saturday after a breakfast of toasted cheese.

Not just any cheese. Birthday cheese, ‘mature yet mellow’ Cathedral cheese to be precise, two packs of which Ka received as a present from her Mum and Dad the night before, the square, cold, heavy present, Ka unwrapped with suspicion. As Ka nodded knowingly on pulling the block from inside the glittery paper, I sighed heavily, quite relieved, as I thought it was going to be a block of semtex.
Following the non explosive present unwrapping, Grace and Dougie bought in a Chinese take away with the help of Morgan, the niece, and Angela, Ka’s sister. The obligatory birthday cake followed and the even more obligatory pass the parcel with Morgan losing interest halfway through the games after realising, after the third pair won, that all the parcels were going to be colourful, stripey socks (a pair of which I won – they’ll go great with my red striped shirt!).
Anyway, following toasted cheese on Saturday we were to meet Ka’s brother, Colin, and his other half, Jillian, in town, have a wee Birthday tipple with them and then go our own way and head over to the Merchant City for a nice romantic meal for two. The nice romantic meal for two didn’t quite happen.
We met Colin and Jillian just after the Grand National had started and as a result Colin was glaring at the television, high up on the wall as we entered through the darkened doorway of one of Renfield Street’s smellier pubs, the Maltman. It may be smelly but a beer is semi affordable and there was plenty of screens for Colin to shout at as he clutched his bundle of Ladbrokes slips with a look of stubborn determination. Unfortunately ten minutes later he was ripping the slips up and Jillian was smiling as her horse had crossed the finish line in second place. She won around £2.40. So after a small drink in the Maltman and Ka being given her Hello Kitty bagged birthday goodies we headed off to find a less smelly pub to socialise in.
Ka, Colin, Jillian and myself found some seats on the, mostly unsmelly, paved square of John Street, outside Committee Room No. 9 and spent the majority of the day’s remainder there, chatting, debating, laughing and joking, trying to avoid bum cracks on display on the high stools behind us and shouting at Jackie, a lady drinking at the next table, who got up before a whole troop of tourists and groped a nearby Roman statue in his nether regions. She was under the impression that this would cure her of all her ills, or something, when in fact, according to the tourist guide, she should have grabbed the statues bag of coins, draped over his left arm. Silly woman. I thought all women went for the money first.
After some pub grub, the drinks kept being bought, birthday spirits were quite high and before long it was time to go home.
But did we? No, of course not.
The four of us jumped in a taxi and went up to Ashton Lane to meet my brother, Kenny, on his last, or one of his last, night outs with his mates before he departs the country. He’s bought a one way ticket to Oz and will be spinning off to that particular far flung destination come Saturday afternoon. The adventure of a lifetime, he, and we, hope anyway. I’ll need to get him a leaving present. Better not make it Cathedral cheese… he will be spending around two or three days in an airport.