Sheltered Life

Regime change has some unexpected side effects at 5am but what can you do other than go with it. Then I walk Doggo with a limp. Him, not me.

I’m on the bus today as I’m heading off to Birmingham straight from work. This is for the 50^th birthday of someone I was at Trent Polytechnic with back in the late 1980s. We have communicated regularly on email but somehow it’s been around 12 years since we last physically met up. Oops.

I am getting the 5:30 train over and another of our old group from Poly is joining me. It’s not been quite so long since I last saw him e.g. last month and regularly before then. We get a message that they have started without us in Birmingham, at about 2pm to be precise. So it could almost be all over by the time we get there.

We arrive in Brum and are directed to the delightfully named Hen and Chickens on Constitution Hill. It looks a right dump but has beer and serves a decent curry, so it certainly ticks a few boxes. Apart from seeing my friend for the first time in many years it’s also good to meet some of his work colleagues with whom I play the online football game Xpert Eleven. It’s good to put faces to names.

Then we head into the centre and to the Mailbox. Where we end up somewhere near the finish of the Black Country Half Marathon, which runs along the canal from Wolverhampton to Birmingham.

We go in a couple of bars that I normally wouldn’t be seen dead in. The first is ok but the second one is a cocktail bar where the drinks menu is lost on me but they do serve something as boring as a lager, so that will have to do. The bar did have an upside clothes but it really must be a sign that you’re getting old when you are wondering what is holding some of the skimpy outfits in place.

By now my travel partner has gone home after not feeling well and the birthday boy isn’t looking at his finest either. Our next stop is Broad Street where I have my first ever Jager Bomb, clearly I’ve lead a sheltered life.

Eventually I leave them to head to the strip club without me, apparently birthday boy doesn’t make it either, and head for the last train. L is on hand to pick me up from Derby. It’s a good night but obviously not as good as a normal Friday night.

(Friday 2^nd September)