birthday season

We took a ride down the motorway yesterday evening to visit my eldest son Ben whose birthday falls next Monday, and his partner in crime Hannah. On the way down we took a slight diversion through Cheltenham to pick up his sister Tash, who had the night off from the pub.

Hannah cooked us all  a lovely supper of spaghetti bolognese, and Nikki brought him a cake. None of us thought to provision the evening with any candles (and I honestly couldn't tell you how many would've been officially needed - somewhere between 20 & 30, I think) but Hannah improvised a fix so all was saved.

It was the second night running I've had spaghetti; the night before I'd dropped around to our guitarist's house for an evening jam with our guitars, and he'd fed me with the same. To be honest, it's one of my favourite meals; left to my own devices I'd probably eat pasta every night and spaghetti bolognese is one of those few dishes I can cook myself without breaking a sweat.

That said, the deliciousness of the last couple of nights' suppers have demonstrated that, as far as my own cooking goes, I really ought to up my game.

As we got into the car to set out for the evening, Nikki reminded me that the 15th was Mum's birthday. My youngest son Sam's birthday falls just over a week after his brother's on the 27th. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness aside, October has always been first and foremost birthday season.