Birthday Weekend

In general, I don’t really do much on/for my birthday, or surrounding it. Birthdays aren’t something I see as generally important, they are (to me) just another day.  I try to recognise them for others and so on, but honestly, I’m not that bothered when it comes to my own.

This year, though, the weekend of my birthday turned out to be a fairly epic one – albeit still not massively social, and more because of the way things worked out, rather than anything else.

The first indicator that it would be a non-standard weekend came a lot earlier in the year, when I discovered that the Royal Albert Hall (RAH) was going to be showing one of my all-time favourite films, Aliens, with the soundtrack being performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.  I’d have booked it for any damn time of the year, to be honest – but the fact it was being done on the day after my birthday made it even better. So I booked tickets for myself and a friend to see it. Happy day. And really, that would’ve been enough to make it a good day/weekend.

But then same friend suggested we make a day of it, and do a decent lunch before the film. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s some decent places just up the road from the RAH.  So he booked a table for us, as well as his wife and son. (Who wouldn’t have let him eat around there without them, all being foodies)  Where? Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental hotel. Because? Well, why not?

But both of those were for the day after my birthday. So, with the Solo Dining project in mind as well, I decided to book somewhere for lunch on the actual day. And ended up with a booking at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons, which had been on my list for a while, and was generally regarded as being bloody good.

And that’s what happened.

And you know what? It was bloody good.   I’ll write more during the coming week, but safe to say, yeah, it’s been a good weekend. Although today I do feel just a bit broken. Sad, but true.