Birthday Girls

As some of you might know, if you are friends on Facebook or if you have been reading my blogs for a year or more, I share my birthday with my daughter Isla. And it was on Tuesday. As luck would have it, she and my mum happened to be in the UK for the day - they were visiting my Grandma. I managed to organise to get three whole days off work, just two weeks into my new job, and head off down to Portsmouth to spend the day together.

I went down on Monday and came back on Wednesday, so we managed to have our whole birthday together. We went down to Southsea seafront on the Monday and paddled our feet and had Verecchias Ice Cream - the best in the world by the way, so if you ever go to Portsmouth look out for yellow ice cream vans!
The plan was that we would either go to the Isle of Wight or Brighton for the day, but they both worked out far too expensive, so we went out for lunch to the Royal Oak at Langstone instead. It's a really old pub which was frequented my both my mum and Grandma in their respective days. My mum used to go there drinking when she was in her twenties, and frequently had to move the car as the tide came in! Grandma used to go when she was really young - during the war. Her offive had been evacuated out to Warblington (near Chichester) and when they were meant to be on firewatch, they used to walk along the coast to the pub and sit and have a drink dangling their legs over the wall into the sea. My Grandma always says she had a really good war - I think she had a lot of fun during that time! Before we went to the Royal Oak though, we went into old Portsmouth where there is a man with a fish stall on the docks and we each had a little pot of prawn cocktail - in the knowledge that they had probably been in the sea still until that morning!
Anyway, we all had fish and chips in the beer garden, which was gorgeous, and then we went for a bit of a drive around to Emsworth and Bosham. We also went to buy Isla's birthday present - a new bike! We got it in Toys R Us, and the man that put the extra bits onto it was bloody gorgeous, and flirty! No wedding ring, but on the other hand he didn't ask me for a drink. Bugger! Lovely though!
On Wednesday (yesterday) we went out to buy my birthday present. Grandma had given me some money, and I was going to get a TV because I don't have one here, but then I decided I didn't need one because I don't get that much time to watch TV, and I have a laptop and a hard drive full of stuff to watch. Instead, I bought a computer desk, and a printer because I don't have one here, and I can't rely on my mate every time I want something printed. So I now have my little work station set up with desk, computer, printer, hard drives, speakers etc - in a techy geeky sense, I am totally sorted!

After that, I went along to Portchester Castle with my mum and Isla. Isla took her new bike, and I just wanted to go because it's one of my very favourite places in the world. If you are even in Portsmouth, make a point of going to the castle - it's stunning, and the views from the top of the Keep are spectacular. It's peaceful there, you can walk dogs, ride a bike around the outside or just have a little wander. Beautiful.
I came back up to Cheltenham last night - I didn't really want to leave - as I don't know when I'll get to see Isla again - but I've got a proper job now - I have to work the hours they tell me, not the hours I fancy like in France!

So, it's back to the daily grind. I'm not posting as much as before because, to be perfectly honest, I'm too damn knackered by the end of the day to do anything but slob and watch crap like Sex & The City at night!

I will endeavour to keep you all up to date with interesting stuff though!