birthdays

It was my turn to take care of someone's birthday at work. She was meant to e-mail me with requests, but neglected to. However, I knew she liked gardening, so settled on a garden voucher, and with this in mind walked down to the nurseries in Ingrave, which I remember from my childhood when it was just a collection of sheds. Now it is still a collection of sheds. Outside of the voucher, I had a couple of quid spare, so I wandered into a shed marked 'Sundries' and scanned the shelves. I am not very good at buying presents. Slug pellets? Weedkiller? Nothing seemed quite right. A product promised to kill pests but only 'control' fungus. What would it be like, I mused idly, to control fungus? What would you be able to make it do?

I suppose it's like 'turf management'. Easy enough if you don't want the turf to do anything complex, like creating a spreadsheet.

Eventually I found a grubby 'rustic' basket, in which I felt the voucher might be presented to advantage, and (having paid, of course) walked down the road with it, managing to stop myself from skipping.

In the event I lined it with a garden waste sack, which I felt was a nice touch, though later it did occur to me that it might be slightly depressing to be presented, on your birthday, with a rubbish bag. Well, she should have e-mailed me; she was lucky I didn't get her a dead badger (as I pointed out).

This week it was also Justin's birthday, which we celebrated in the Swan. Mat couldn't be there because he was at a Prodigy concert with Dave - slightly reluctantly, since he was worried he might miss the imminent birth of his first child. Some wicked person suggested that, halfway through the evening, everybody should text him their congratulations ('Oh, didn't you know?') But that would have been evil. And the Prodigy were already tormenting him, having named one of the tracks off their new album Take Me To The Hospital.