Happy Birthday,....Happy Birthday....

Today is my birthday and I have reached the grand old age of...*ahem*.....36.

Not got much planned, am visiting the health visitor later for Emilie's 2 year check-up, but thought I had better check in here as well and give you a short update on my life and let you know that I am still about! Work is still the same though might have some more staff in the kitchen by the time I get back. Already had one commis started and he seems okay so far. I am now starting the second week of a 2-week holiday and have spent most of that so far just chillaxing and doing very little! Am reading lots of books, writing lots of Dooyoo reviews (and up to another £75 already!) and spending quality time with my daughter. At the hotel before I left, had 2 very hard weeks as HC was on his annual 2 weeks holiday; Geordie Ed quit in the middle of those and I got very, very stressed out. If hadn't been for all the bills needing paying, would've walked out the door it was so bad. That's one of the reasons I have not been on. There are so many Blog posts on here already about work and really wasn't in the mood to add to them or post anything really. Was a bit fed up and just needed some time away from the introspective eye of this Blog. But didn't want you guys to think I had forgotten you so....here I am!

Dooyoo is great but theres this one reviewer on there who seems to be dogging me at the mo! On three seperate reviews I have written recently she has left a disparaging comment offering advice or sent me a Private message in the same vein. I could block her so she can't send me messages but then I would worry about what she was trying to say to me. It's not like I'm a Fracking New Guy or FNG and have been writing reviews for some time now and also know she means no harm and is trying to be helpful but I just find her comments condescending and feel like telling her to frack off! Luckily I am too polite for that but honestly- if you read this, and you know who you are, please don't take offence but you are an interfering, pain-in-the-arse c*&%! Lol!

Managed to finally finish Saigon and what an epic read that was but very good all the same. Covering 50 years of Vietnam history through the eyes of one man and his family is no mean feat but the author really pulled it off with tremendous success! Since then some of the books I have read include Wolves Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith who wrote Gorky Park- an interesting thriller set around the legacy of Chernobyl; A Dozen Black Roses by Nancy Collins- a vampire novel featuring her anti-heroine Sonja Blue, herself a twisted new breed of vampire whom we first encountered in Sunglasses After Dark; and Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs. Am also still reading Mao but have only 300 pages left to go now so getting close to the end.

For my birthday, mostly got money as there is nothing I really wanted but also got the MIL to buy me Richard Dawkins book, The Greatest Show On Earth which supposedly offers the scientific theories behind why Evoloution MUST have happened beyond any doubt! Listening to the radio the other day as they discussed the new film which coincedentally has just beeen released about Darwin (who published the theory of Evoloution first) a guest commented that he could see no reason why Creationists and Evoloutionists had to be at odds as they are not exclusive to each other which I thought an interesting take. Know Dawkins is allegedly an Atheist but this other guy on the radio suggested that if you ignore the whole seven days of creation malarkey and treat it figuratively instead of literally, then there is no reason that you cannot accept that God, if he exists, could not have used Evoloution as his way of creating life. It's an interesting idea and it is good to see that science and faith do not have to be seperated and that there can be some common middle ground!

Going back to the topic of my birthday...why exactly DO we celebrate the day we were born? Is it some kind of ritual to make us glad that we are another year older and still alive...? It certainly feels no different to me than any other day except for the fact that I awoke this morning to my daughter opening all my cards! Maybe I should google the origins of the birthday celebration....anyway, 5 days to go till back to work so, for now, ciao ciao!

I have a very obscure translated-from-Russian seventies science-fiction novel to finish. And yes, it is very very good! :)