Neal Of Arabia: Birthdays

It's been a bit of a birthday blitz since Christmas. Starting with Abigail who turned 12 on Dec 28. We'd planned our UK trip to finish on that date so we could celebrate with family before flying back to Riyadh later that evening. Abigail's favourite birthday present was her new mobile phone.

At that same family get-together we gave Sian her present, since we wouldn't be there for her birthday on Jan 1.

Once back in Riyadh the next one was Alix's (Abigail's best friend) on Jan 6, and Abigail gave her some nice cosmetics kits and a teddy bear, all in a glitzy gift bag.

Next it was my turn (Jan 11): you don't want to know how old I am. I don't even want to know but I can't help it! I did really well present-wise: Karen bought me a new pair of Rollerblades

(they're scarily fast! I think she may be trying to bump me off and make it look like an accident), some aftershave and some other smellies/shaving stuff. I got some nice DVDs and a couple of books on photography too, and also bought myself a professional and quite expensive tripod; not the most exciting of articles, but if you're a photographer your tripod is your next best friend after your camera, and quality matters.

It's a Manfrotto 458b, and in the world of tripods if it's not the King then it's definitely a minor Royal. We also had a few friends round for a party, where we played some fun games (Cranium, Who's In The Bag? etc.) and Karen made a fab curry. A jolly good time was had by all and we didn't fall into bed til around 3am (that's just the two of us, not all!). I'm normally one of those "don't want a fuss" types when it comes to birthdays, but I'm slowly coming round to the idea of being made a fuss of!

The next day Alix and Abigail had a joint birthday party so they could celebrate belatedly with their schoolfriends. Four hours, five pizzas, untold cans of pop and lots of loud music later, they emerged with big grins on their faces and struggling to carry all their extra presents, so I think it was a success.

(Catastrophe! I just went to add a couple of photos from the party but they've disappeard from my laptop! I'll get copies from Abigail when I get back and post them here then.)

As I write I'm in my hotel room in Wokingham (yes, another UK trip, but this time just me and for three days on business), and I've just come from Laura's (Karen's sister) whose birthday it is today (Jan 14). Her big pressie was a portable sat-nav unit which I helped her to set up, and which made me very jealous, since it's newer and better than mine; it does everything but make the tea, and it might even do that (didn't have time to read the manual).