Birthday week

This last week has been a rather busy one with a somewhat unexpected turn just past the halfway point. Sufficiently intrigued? Let me walk you through it.

As usually happens around this time of year, I had a week off work which just so happened to coincide with my - shhhhh! - birthday. Handy, eh? That being the case, I had a very chilled out Saturday after finishing work on the Friday. Sunday was another matter, though, as I planned an early yoga class followed by my traditional week-off house cleaning frenzy.

Unfortunately, these darker mornings apparently aren't too conducive to getting up on a Sunday morning just after seven, and so I actually found myself waking up around 11 am feeling like a naughty school boy. Still, I did get up and clean Sparky Towers from top to bottom, including - eeeeeeww - cleaning out the plughole in the bath. As the day progressed, however, I felt myself feeling increasingly guilty at not having gone to yoga, resulting in me doing something totally unexpected and spontaneous and going to the day's final class at five pm.

What with all the cleaning and the guilt-yoga I was well knacked come the evening.

Monday's sole objective was a haircut, which I was almost late for thanks to some stupid roadworks just outside Kingston. Fortunately, my regular lady wasn't too busy and actually laughed at me as I ran into the shop huffing and puffing after running all the way from the car park looking, I imagine, for all the world like I'd shoplifted something from HMV and was hot-footing it from a portly security guard who was in lukewarm pursuit.

The haircut, needless to say, was awesome; I've gone for something a little bit different this time around, and have abandoned my regular short and spiky look for something that looks a smidgeon like Brad Pitt's 'do in Inglorious Basterds, just without the severe side-parting. I'm guessing this will be a bit more high maintenance than my usual cut, and I'll probably be moaning about it in about three weeks, but for now I'm well happy.

Tuesday was, of course, my birthday (thank you for all the lovely birthday messages, by the way). Rather than lounge around in my pants watching Trisha and This Morning, though, I decided to do something I wouldn't normally even think about doing on my birthday: I went to yoga. The reasons for this were actually three-fold: reason the first was the aforementioned 'do something different on your birthday' idea; reason the second was that the class is understandably a bit emptier if you go during the day when everyone else is at work; and reason the third is that one of my favourite teachers teaches on Tuesday mornings.

So, I got up early, jumped in Clubbie with plenty of time to spare and … promptly got stuck in a massive traffic jam. At several points along the way I seriously thought about turning round and going home as I didn't think there was any way I'd make it to the studio on time, but I persevered because quite frankly I couldn't think of a good way of filling the time having got up so early. Anyway, I parked up with about 15 minutes to spare and legged it to the studio, arriving with eight minutes left before class started and looking for all the world like I'd shoplifted something fro- oh, you get the idea.

In the few minutes before class started I somehow managed to get my regular spot in one of the slightly cooler parts of the room, and was pleasantly surprised when the teacher came over and told me that my class was free because I was attending on my birthday. BONUS. I then quizzed her on how she knew it was my birthday, basically accusing her of having psychic powers before she said I'd given them my date of birth when I first signed up and they kept it on record. Ah … of course…

Anyway, class began and the teacher, bless her, singled me out and told everyone that it was my birthday. I think she might've done this to show everyone how dedicated I was to my yoga training, because she then said "so Tim, why have you come to class on your birthday?"

I shrugged my shoulders and replied "because I've got a week off."

She looked at me a bit sternly and said "I'll ask again: why have you come to class on your birthday?"

I don't know whether she was expecting some sort of profound existentialist statement from me, but what she ultimately got was "because I've got nothing better to do."

This seemed to please her, and after the entire class turned to wish me happy birthday (there was MUCH LOVE in the studio, let me tell you; I was *well* touched), we began with our Pranayama breathing. The birthday comments continued throughout class, mainly when I was flagging a bit and the teacher shouted over to me to put a bit more effort in, referring to me as 'birthday boy' rather than by name.

The rest of the day was spent over with my family where I was given lots of lovely presents, but only after I successfully managed to get out of my road after a big truck parked across the top, thus preventing anyone from getting in or out. Rude.

At precisely 19:46 that evening, however, I noticed a little tickle in my throat. It couldn't be … could it?

Wednesday was scheduled in as my usual Christmas shopping trip with Sparky Ma, and yes, it could: I woke up with a sore throat. Nothing - and I mean NOTHING - stops our shopping expeditions, though, and I powered through under the influence of lots of coffee and a big Nandos for lunch.

Didn't buy any Christmas presents, though.

Thursday pretty much sucked. I felt so ridiculously rough that I sat at home and watched a full two-thirds of the latest Family Guy boxset. I didn't move in about seven hours.

I awoke on Friday feeling pretty much equally crap, and seriously considered a last-minute cancellation of my birthday party that was scheduled for that evening. I didn't, though, and actually felt a hell of a lot better being in the company of my pals. I'm not quite sure if the excruciatingly painful nipple twisting inflicted upon me by El Deano helped in any way, but I've sure felt better since the evening as a whole, and a wonderful time was had (by me at least).

Since then, it's all been pretty chilled out; I'm still a bit snotty and phlegm-y, but I think I'm over the worst of it. Sadly, it has meant no yoga this weekend, but on the other hand I did watch the entire second season of Flight of the Conchords. I also went food shopping in a branch of M&S Simply Food (tres posh), and in addition to buying two of their coffee sponge rolls (*orgasmic*) I thought I'd give their new alcohol-free soft drinks for grown-ups a whirl.

If anyone else was considering this, might I suggest you don't? It tastes like booze (which to a tee-totaller like me is pretty gross), but you don't get the awesomeness of being tipsy - where the hell is the fun in that!? I'm going to be so angry if I wake up tomorrow with a hangover!

Avoid.