The birthday countdown begins

 
My ears are still ringing. The gig of the year, my Weymouth friend says. I wouldn't argue with that.

'Not a bit poptastic, then?' asks Pelly 'I-grew-up-with-prog-rock' Sheepwash this morning.

'No, slaptastic,' I say, beaming.

I went back twenty-odd years last night to see Level 42 and, do you know? They're better now than they were then. Mind you, I was only a few months away from giving birth to Number One Son and spent all night standing on a cold, concrete floor in the Showering Pavilion at Shepton Mallet.

Now that I'm nearly fifty, the comfy seats of Weymouth Pavilion came in handy. But the pounding bass of Mark King and those lovely harmonising vocals of keyboard player Mike Lindup got me out of my seat. Music to my ageing ears.

No wonder I've got tinnitus. A misspent youth of disco music, punk rock, jazz funk and chillout. And a bit of folk interspersed.

And what's more, even Mr Grigg enjoyed the gig, despite thinking we were going to see U2. (I saw them in a pub in North London in about 1980 and gave Bono a light. But I enjoyed Level 42 much, much more).

Anyway, the big five-oh is less than a week away and the countdown is already beginning. Last night, getting high on Level 42, tonight a quiet night in with Mr Grigg, tomorrow a rib of beef from a farm down the road, Tuesday night catching up with an old school friend in the birthplace of powered fight, Wednesday night a crisis meeting in the village about the pub and the shop, and, on my actual birthday, my favourite of all days out - the Melplash Show - followed by a nice meal at the Riverside Restaurant.

Then an Hawaiian-themed party in the village hall to say thank you to all our fete helpers, then Mr Scruff (Mr Scruff is coming to My Kind of Town! Just for me, I think, after writing about the Grigg antics in Camden). And then, and then, a birthday picnic on the village green with the mellow jazz of the Clive Ashley Quartet followed by the village flower show on Bank Holiday Monday.

No rest for the wicked, eh?

That's about it.

Love Maddie x