I am 36 turning 37

So Tuesday I turn 37 and I was a little anxious about reaching such an age but my old philosophy of age doesn’t matter still rings true – mentally I still think I am 18 and I am out there doing things and enjoying life so age is irrelevant.

As my birthday is in the week we decided to celebrate early and spend the day in town.

I am not one for organising birthday parties or drinks for myself but this year I felt I wanted to celebrate.

We started our day in Convent Garden having a browse around shops such as Penhaligons and Molton Brown where we bought some nice things for the bathroom. Following this we made our way through the hoards of tourists (I really do hate Covent Garden) had the obligatory visit to the Apple store and then onto Ecco as I wanted to look for some new work shoes.

Friends and readers of old will know the trouble I have had with my back – well sadly it has returned and a visit to the doctor this week highlighted therapy, drugs or a possible visit to hospital again for another round of injections. I don’t want the drugs or injections so hope that my new round of physio which starts this week will help sort matters out.

Anyway… I went to Ecco as their shoes are tremendously comfortable, they give sufficient support and last an absolute age. The Firetrap boots I bought not 3 1/2 months ago have started to fall apart and I am sure the crap soles on them are the root cause of my back pain.

So I tried on some shoes and have opted for some classic tan brogues and am now £100 worse off then when I began (actually that’s not strictly true as Richard gave me some money for my birthday so this goes towards the shoes…). I hope they end up helping my back and I can return to full health as soon as possible.

From Covent Garden we made our way to Leicester Square where we were mindful of the vibrations from the helicopter above which signalled the student rally which was passing through the Square. We took diversionary tactics and managed to avoid the mob (apparently the rally was peaceful), and headed over to Piccadilly and the White Cube Gallery.

The latest exhibition, the Urethra postcard art of Gilbert and George is on and it’s as enlightening, filthy, entertaining, disgusting and fun as any work I have ever seen the suited artists produce.

One of the works has a brilliant hand written message from Gilbert and George “We are the two most disturbed people we have ever met. Love, Gilbert and George.”. This wonderfully sums up the level and the tone of the work on display and it made for an entertaining browse.

I was a little shocked when a well-to-do couple brought their 3-year-old son in to run around – after the mother finally clocked all the cock, butts and tits on display the husband and the child left the gallery :)))

Following the White Cube we stopped at a Patisserie in Piccadilly where we gorged ourselves on cream tea (as you can see from the photo above), as if this wasn’t decadent enough we then had a browse around Jermyn Street and Fortnum and Masons (Richard hopefully will have gotten the hint about the Vivienne Westwood laptop bag!).

So from Piccadilly we made our way through the West End, avoiding the police vans, the crowds, Una Stubbs and the police helicopters to wind up in The Duke of Wellington (does anyone see a pattern forming here) where we met friends for a couple of drinks before heading off to the Eagle Bar Diner.

The Welly was full of large bears yesterday – more so than normal. I felt positively svelte when compared to the clientele. It felt like they’d all be rounded up and herded into the Welly to keep them off the streets.

I do enjoy watching the pattern of events in such bars, the comings, the goings, watching whose cruising who, seeing whose looking at you etc – I find it quite amusing. Of course the introduction of a particularly fit friend of mine to the bar had some eyes headed naturally in our direction! LOL

So as mentioned in the review below we had a rather raucous time in the Eagle Bar Diner with lovely food, great cocktails and wine and lots of merriment. I am not sure such places are that plentiful in London but it was fun to be able to attend for a meal and then the place kind of morphed into a bar/club – the DJ was spinning some interesting tunes – the music in fact was very good.

I had a lovely day, a wonderful evening and our friends made me feel sufficiently special for my birthday – there were some encouraging comments about the painting too – I look forward to delivering it to the Royal Academy.

Today will be much quieter – we had a late night and have both had busy weeks again so today will be spent chilling out and resting my back.

I hope you’ve all had fun this weekend?

Oh I just want to say Hi to Jeff and best of luck with the move to San Francisco (via New York darling!)