#2 - Growing up

22/01/11

I am now 19 years and 2 days old.
don't really feel any different - after all why would I - but 19 sounds a lot older than 18. I guess that's because 18 is still just a school pupil age whereas 19 is when you either go to Uni or get a proper job or decide you'll claim benefits full time.
went out for a meal with my friends who I know mainly through First Sunday, our monthly event in Leamington where 'youth' from all the local churches organise and enjoy an evening of worship in various forms. really going to miss it when I'm away.
but anyway, went for a meal at Ask then to The Fox and Satchwell's, and had a genuinely very nice evening indeed.
that was last night, and tonight I went for a meal with my parents and my sister, which was also very nice.

On an aside, I'd like to mention that a very good friend of mine, Alasdair Munday, left last Thursday for his trip to Nepal (pronounced Nep-AL rather than Nep-ALL apparently) and I'd basically like to wish him the best of luck. he's with a charity out there providing education for children, and he'll be teaching maths so an extra dose of good luck will be needed. A few of us went out for some drinks to toast him farewell, and it's worth a mention that Al was instrumental in forming the institution that is Wine Night.
When we discovered that whiskey from The White Horse was too expensive for our liking, he proposed a perusal of the wine list and we then found out by chance that on Tuesdays, bottles priced £<14 are just £7.95 and £14-20 are £11.95. I've lost count of how many Wine Nights there have been, but they have all been brilliant evenings and I sincerely hope that Chris, Matt, Rob et al can continue it while I am away.

I'm pretty much there with all the prep for Panama now - bought some walking shoes for when I scale Machu Picchu and also some socks that will keep my feet 'not too hot, not too cold' apparently. difficult to know whether that was just sales-pitch hyperbole and her colleagues were secretly laughing at me or not, but I bought them nonetheless.

Not sure how often many more posts I'll do before I go away, seeing as this one has been essentially a self-indulgent recollection of my birthday celebrations and the point of this blog is in fact to update people on my adventures in Panama.
but I'll do a couple to finalise my writing style, which is difficult as I'm trying to appeal to a wide audience ranging from probably 14/15 year olds up to my grandparents and that generation (no mention of ages of course).

so until then, farewell and thanks for reading, even though you probably found large amounts of it uninteresting. just 16 days until I will have something interesting to write about, bear with me.

JG