Friday was my birthday – 56! – I was at work for the day, and home alone when I first got home as Becky and Sophie have been away in Italy (Florence and environs) since Monday morning. But they flew back for my birthday (!!!) and joined me about 7pm
And knowing how to party, the next night I spent with 200 teenagers! It was the Year 11 Formal Dinner – not the perfect timing given my birthday, and tiredness at the end of another busy week, which had been compounded by a bit of a cold.
Any 50 (not quite 56!) helium balloons blown up, and the dining room was transformed. It was a good evening – my main criteria being no dramas or poor behaviour, but I would say it exceeded that and was a lovely evening for the students, if if it did mean a 10pm finish – with very aching feet – for a very tired Jeffery! (I rewarded myself with a snooze of in excess of an hour this afternoon.)
The weather has remained largely dry, with mild temperatures, ending with a sunny day today (and a week that is set to get warmer)necessitating me dead-heading a number of daffodils, but they are replaced with blooming, red tulips.
Had a minor panic today as all my websites had stopped working, but a quick “chat” call got them back up and running – it was the php version causing the problem (it was obsolete), and then the Jetpack plugin causing further problems on my About Stuff page.
Also on Friday, perhaps somewhat aptly, the RAF retired its Pumas after 54 years surface. Over 30 years ago, my first RAF posting was to RAF Laarbruch as OC PCMF – Puma and Chinook Maintenance Flight and ever since I have had a soft spot for this flying Landrover. Whenever I heard a helicopter over head on Thursday and Friday I gazed skywards, hoping I would catch a final glimpse of one of these “cabs”, but it seems we were not on the farewell flypast route, and all I saw was navy helicopters flying out of Yeovilton. I found this pic on Twitter, as a pair of Pumas flew over Duxford on their final flight, with, appropriately, a VC10 (albeit a civvy version, not a K tanker) sat majestically in the background.
