Half century celebrations #2

It's always a pisser when your birthday falls on a working day isn't it? Well actually, not this time.

For a start I was working from home, which is always much more relaxed and convivial. A good supply of tea and the quiet atmosphere broken only by the obligatory 10 o'clock revving of the neighbour's Reliant Robin engine as he reversed out of his garage. Today the atmosphere was greatly improved by the early arrival of two esteemed colleagues for an "off-site meeting" at MANJB - the new designation of our house which (kind of) follows the coding convention applied to our office locations.

After the obligatory tour of the premises (one of the guys had not been here before), second pot of tea, and connection of the mini-switch to the home network to give them both access to the corporate VPN, we settled down to discuss important matters of business. It was a bit of a crush since we still only have one table in the study (the other is doing double-duty as a kitchen table at the moment pending relocation of the microwave), but that only served to engender a sort of enforced camaraderie and a feeling of "camping out" which added to the fun.

With the massed brains all firing at full capacity the work was quickly dispensed with and we repaired to the pub for lunch. I'd selected the excellent Metropolitan in West Didsbury and despite the car park being almost full on our arrival we managed to secure seats on the comfy sofas, settle back and enjoy a pint of Tim Taylor's Landlord and a fine lunch (made even tastier by the fact that my colleagues insisted on paying for it in honour of my birthday).

With beer and excellent conversation flowing freely the time passed all too quickly and we realised we were pretty much the only ones left in the place, so the lads drove us back to MANJB, picked up their stuff and headed off leaving me to put the final touches to our presentation just in time to pick Nikki up from work.

The celebrations continued almost without pause as we then headed straight out for birthday dinner at one of our favourite restaurants before the evening rush started. The perfect end to a perfect day, and the celebrations weren't over yet!