Darren Beale

On friday I turned 35 and it was definitely the best birthday I’ve had for a while.

I drove down to London on Thursday in my* new car and it was the first time I’ve gone more than a few miles in it. It’s a 6 yr old Mitsubishi Shogun ‘Elegance’ with all the toys and it really ate the miles  up although I noticed how big it is when I got to squeezing through my old haunts in East London. Also the built-in Satnav is a) pants compared to TomTom 6 b) really annoying when the voice talks all over - read: muting in the middle of a conversation - the car phone.

I stayed with Karl and Ann in Leyton and they made me feel very welcome; we had a nice dinner and I then collapsed on their sofa-bed for the night.

Friday was the UK PHP Conference which was excellent and well worth the trip up to London by itself (not that I need much of an excuse). I sloped off early and made my way over to Bethnal Green and my old offices at Exponetic. Karl has upped the headcount to 10 full-time now and it was funny to see how he has really crammed them in; rumour has it that there is a move to something much bigger in the near future.

A few of us left at 6ish and headed off to a pub at the south end of Brick Lane as we’d made arrangements to meet up with a number of the WAUK (mostly ex Freelancers.net) lot and soon there was circa 20 people there. Around 9 we headed off for a curry at a BYO place off Mile End road and I think it’s safe to say that a great laugh was had by all. I’ve posted up a few Phonecam movies on youtube.
Saturday my poxy body-clock still woke me up at 7am even though I didn’t get to bed before 1am  but I made the most of it and headed into town. I bought loads of new clothes and also had the best fish and the chips I have ever had at a place near Covvy G before heading back to E10 for excuse #2 for being in London. Yes an Orient home match; I’m pleased to say that the O’s kicked Tranmere’s sorry asses and my drive home was all the more pleasant for it.

Today was my pretend birthday for the kids so I opened up the presents, the highlight being a Nigel Slater cookbook, before getting down to the serious business of finally taking a look at the bike that had been delivered whilst I was away.

MY NEW RALEIGH GRIFTER

I got it off eBay and whilst it has got to be at least 20 years old it’s immaculate as apparently it’s spent all that time in someone’s loft, oiled, so other than a few minor scrapes it’s as good as when it was bought. If I were sensible I’d now store it for a further 20 years but I’m not so from tomorrow I shall enjoy using it on my already short commute to work.

As I say, a great birthday.

*Cathie is not very happy about me driving around in a 3.5 V6 (petrol) for a number of environmental reasons. So it’s very much my car allowing her to maintain the moral high-ground by continuing to drive around in our old trusty Volvo. In my defence we’re about to buy a caravan and I needed something pretty beefy to pull that and 4 people, their stuff and their bikes.