I promise you that my 50th birthday celebrations
have come to an end. It must be the
longest ever celebrated birthday – sorry hope you forgive me for this self-indulgence. Anyway.
The celebrations started at the end of March in Dublin and has rolled on
and on finally ending in Madrid on 5th May. However, for good measure I have been on a three
day “teambuilding session” with the FD Centre in London and Paris from 6th
to 8th May!
I have had so much fun. Just being able to catch up with so many friends
from today and from yesteryear. Very
often we were all telling the old same stories that we had heard for
generations but told as though we were hearing them for the first time and
every time we would still be laughing. In
addition I probably drunk far too much for a person on the wrong side of
50. The past month’s adventure has gone
from being “Le Tour D’ Europe” to “Where did my liver go tour?“
The long weekend to Madrid was a joint celebration
with my best mate Richard and Cher. In fact Rich is still celebrating “not
being 50” as he has to wait until June 19th.
Cher had suggested the idea of a joint celebration to me some time ago
but she wanted it to be a surprise for Richard. Cher did the majority of the organising most
of which turned out well. I’m not going
to say too much about the accommodation.
All I will say is that three words you do not always want hear “Old” “Traditional”
“Spanish”.
Our families have shared loads of holidays together and
almost without fail something unusual or farfetched would occur: Rich broke his
ankle falling off a skim board whilst holidaying in Florida; Rich was trampled
on by a horse at a festival in St Luis, Menorca; we all ended up in a “swarm”
of jellyfish in Greece etc. This trip to
Madrid was no different but luckily there wasn’t any need for medical treatment:
we found ourselves listening to a six foot man with rat like features in a “old
traditional Spanish” bar called the Mushroom Club; a man dressed as a demonic freaky
looking goat sat in the middle of the Plaza Major annoying the life out of us;
a quirky restaurant owner reminded us of Mr Chow, the Chinese guy from the film
The Hangover; a party of 20 Chinese people spontaneously broke out into song whilst
sat waiting for their meal and received a standing ovation from everyone in the
street etc. There are plenty of other
stories which I won’t go into detail about because you wouldn’t believe them
anyway
Madrid is a beautiful and classical city. The whole
ambience is very relaxed and spontaneous. There is just so much going on all
the time. Great bars and restaurants my personal favourite being the bar with
the bullfighting memorabilia on the edge of Plaza Major. Every time you ordered a drink in any bar a plates
of tapas would be brought to you at no additional cost. At times Madrid seemed
to be like be sort of all-inclusive resort. I would highly recommend Madrid to
anyone for a long weekend.
The fact that our families have spent so many holidays
and good times made looking at the empty fourth seat very hard for the three of
us. We still feel the huge loss in our
lives and still find it all so difficult to accept. The only thing we could do is to enjoy
ourselves as Caroline would have demanded and we all agreed she was with us laughing
with us.
The past few weeks have really lifted my own spirits
and now feel ready to take on the World.
I feel so different to where I was at the start of April. It’s all thanks to all of you that took time
to celebrate with me. Certain aspects of
my life are improving by quite a step change and now beginning to feel certainty
in my own decision making and direction.
The path is certainly straight on at the moment. The partying and the travelling has come to
end for the time being. Now I have
return to real world and de-toxing. Next
step is to run the Bristol 10k on 11th May.
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