Rumination: 40 Years Achieved & Celebrated!

So, how does 40 years old feel, exactly? Not all that different to 39 to be honest, or to any age back as far as about 32 for that matter, it's more of a marker along the way of life than the start of old age, and so many people I know have turned 40 without it affecting them at all that it held no dread for me, indeed hitting 30 was far harder for me than 40 could ever be. No one believes the 'Life Begins at 40' adage any more, and the fears of irrelevance with the passing years have been shunted on by a decade or more, certainly no one I know feels like life left them behind with their fifth decade starting, and I can now look back on the last decade with a great feeling of satisfaction and hope for the one to come. My fourth decade may have started with some moments of serious emotional instability, followed by the dissolution of my settled existence in Burley, but at its end, I am permanently settled in Morley and feel like I am in my prime, at the end of a walking odyssey that has taken me cross country and given me fresh perspectives on all corners of West Yorkshire, feeling good about my current self rather than lamenting my lost youth. So, taking a week off work seemed like a good plan for my 40th Birthday week, so that I might enjoy some time to myself rather than having to exercise my limbs at the hospital, and when you have gone and walked 1,400+ miles, you deserve the opportunity to do nothing for a while.




40th Birthday Selfie

Of course, nothing is precisely what I didn't do with my week off, time is precious and the mind will find things to do with the body, like hitting the cinema to see 'Mr Turner' and enjoy Mike Leigh's take on the later years of Britain's first 19th century modernist painter, which features a remarkable performance from Timothy Spall, a really excellent feeling of the period setting and a gorgeous palette which is a joy to look at, but sadly lacks a strong narrative drive and errs rather too long, all said. There's also the business of taking cake to work, as my friends and colleagues might be lacking my company and labour for the week, they can enjoy my largesse and £20's worth of sweet goods, whilst I drop in for a brew before the even more important business of treating myself to a new printer-scanner-copier as my old one hasn't been working properly for 8 years now. Birthday money can also be splashed online to acquire my annual treat of a new old Railway poster via eBay, and a few festive t-shirts from Zazzle, plus whatever bargains can be snared on Amazon, and once the money is dispersed, I can get on with the hard work of putting 18 months worth of paperwork in order and organising a clear-out of my closets, one of which is largely filled with stuff that I haven't touched in 7+ years. Who'dve thought a boy could hang on to so many empty shoe boxes (8),  videotapes (3 boxes), bags of worn-out clothes (6), jiffy bags (3 boxes), pairs of knackered shoes (5!), cardboard tubes and broken electrical appliances (4, including 2 PCs, the newer of which I had been praising recently for having made it to 5 years old without any fritzy moments). Just as well I had my Parents coming up to visit, as they are not just good for taking me out for a celebratory dinner at Saffron Desi in Morley (with Tandoori fish!), but they can also haul me to Middleton tip to get rid of all the junk that I have acquired, allowing my spare closet to be actually useful for storage and guest usage for the first time since I moved in, all those years ago. They also prove handy to tear me over to Garforth, so I can drop in on my supervisor's house and purchase her unwanted PC that her daughters no longer need, a useful spare machine to have in reserve whilst I get used to working on a laptop, at least it will be once I've broken the password lock on it which her little girl just cannot remember, unfortunately.



Left Foot Forward c/o My Sister

Of course, the important business of the week is having a proper celebration of my 40th Birthday on the Saturday, the first time I have made a concerted effort to have an occasion since my 30th, an idea which I've had in the back of my mind for quite a few years, and right up front ever since I decided to do 1,000 Miles before I'm 40. The back room at the Adelphi was organised for it back in August, chosen as it's one of the few venues that I honestly love, being equal parts old-timey and full-blown hipster, and also because it has small rooms that can easily be claimed and isolated, guaranteeing my own space and no interference from the regular clientele. The whole family is organised to come over, which isn't too difficult when there are only seven of us, but getting everyone to arrive for a 2pm start feels like it should be a bit of a challenge when Elder Niece shares a birthday week with me, but in the end, My Sis, Dr G and the girls all arrive without difficulty and on time, despite the mist, and they bring a pair of considerations my way too. First is my gift, of Benny's SPACESHIP!!! from the Lego Movie, which I have wanted ever since seeing it at the cinema in March, and have been reluctant to purchase as it price never dipped below £50 (and have I mentioned that I am a Lego Classic Space nut on this blog? Probably not, and there's certainly a whole 'nother tale to tell with that particular fascination, someday). Second is my cake, a commission placed on her as her girls have regularly seen the full force of her artistic creativity come birthday time, and my request was stipulated as 'a boot' without any further details, and what she has turned out is a pretty good recreation of the style of my first pair, long since disposed of, but still recalled as tan and black. Inside it's madeira and jam, with the slightest hint of caramel in the icing, plus gummi laces, altogether a confection worthy of the highest praise.



Right Foot Forward c/o NW

I'm not up for whole lot of decorating, some bunting banners and a half dozen balloons will do for me, whilst most of the entertainment for the day is brought by me compiling a slightly alternative 80's playlist to be played out of my laptop, which had been intended to just be part of the day's musical accompaniment, but eventually grew to fill 9 hours, providing enough sounds for the whole session, and frankly a blast was had compiling it, too. Ale choices seem to suggest that I should be drinking 'Old Man', a deeply appropriate beer for the occasion but one that is just a bit too dark and burned-toast flavour to be good for a session, thankfully, 'Leeds Pale' is on the pump too, and that'll do the ticket just fine. Folks take a while to turn out in quantity, but everyone who comes out is received warmly and with gratitude, my good friends IH & AK, who are sadly unable to stay out long, but who do bring beer from the new shop in Hebden Bridge, MW in the midst of a madly busy weekend and lacking the company of S due to familial illness, and also MC, who I haven't seen since he moved away and then returned to Leeds during the last 5 years. The arrival of my buffet spread for 20 (dips, cold cuts, fries and 10,000 sarnies, mostly) happily coincides with the appearance of many of my comrades-in-arms from the hospital, JM, KM, KC, WD, LT, CM, DS and super DH, with a gift of a £25 amazon gift card, and a celebratory pint glass, and also along is NW, with her husband B and her kids E & S, who have both somehow gotten to be around the top of their first decades already. Along with them comes more cake, as NW is famed for her exploit in 'caking hell', and her commission was for another boot, this time a pretty close representation of my third and fourth pairs, brown with chocolate mud within, complete with silver eyelets and simulated sheep poo, another superlative effort which deserves the utmost gratitude, some people's capacity for creativity never fails to astound me.



Ignition: Cheers to 40 years & 1402.2 miles!

My parents depart mid-evening with my nieces, so they might have a personal celebration for Elder whilst her personal festive season is still close, whilst the remainder can settle into the routine of booze, banter and balloon tennis, and that's the reason why you need your own space for an occasion like this, isn't it? I also run a slide show on my laptop, so that people might get a flavour of my many trails around the country, but it does get a bit embarrassing that far too many shots from my first two seasons can slip by on a random shuffle and my commentary is reduced to 'Nope, Nope, Somewhere near Kirkby Stephen, I think...', a prime example of showing how the brain fails to respond in a pressure situation. Numbers dwindle eventually, so the remainder can cluster around a single table for wit and wisdom, largely never to be recalled because of the amount of booze forced into our collective systems, whilst I take up DJ duties to keep the company entertained, mostly by putting more David Bowie into the mix foe super DH, as she believes that music is basically Bowie and everything else, and I'm happy to keep her accommodated, which makes my failure to provide Abba or Leann Rimes for others a bit pitiful (that's not something you can provide when you major personal tastes are Noise Rock and post Hardcore, and the general populist thrust of the day is 80s cheese). All in all a rather sedate time, I'm not the person to look to for doing raucous, after all, indeed Karaoke is as demonstrative as I'll get these days, and the party dissolves around 11.20pm, with the company getting the warmest of thanks before separating to various taxis, and I've got enough cake to take away to keep us going for a good few days, happy to prove that there was good reason for me not to dispose of my many biscuit tubs. Take the ride back to Morley via the Kirkstall Road Premier Inn, where the rest of my family is staying so that I might sleep off my hangover in piece, and on the last leg the taxi driver enquires of the occasion, and when I tell him it was my 40th Birthday, he tells me 'you don't look it', and that's a good reason to end the day in extra good cheer.

Next on the Slate: What have we learned in 2014?