Deacon's Birthday Surprise

It's my husbands 30th Birthday this week. 30! Fantastic! He hasn't sweated about it in the slightest, infact, he has positively embraced it as an ideal opportunity to get absolutely hammered. Binge drinking will be seen in its finest form in the pubs of Southampton this weekend.

However, when you have been with your OH for the past 12 years, trying to find something bigger and better than the last birthday to enthrall the senses and raise more than a smile is getting decidedly more difficult.
Deacon has always taken life by the balls and swung it around his head in a way that I can only look on with admiration. He is one of those people that has been there and done a damn sight more than a lot of people have.

Childhood hobbies included, BMX biking (the real deal), caving, marking bird eggs for the RSPB!?, Jet skiing, paintballing, mountain biking, Being a general buff when it came to anything animal, keeping obscure pets and fishing to name but a few. I used to collect blossom when I was young... It used to die...get sludgy and I would get upset.

Since I have known Deacon, he has scuba dived, bungee jumped, parachuted and drag raced at Santa Pod. Try topping that with a budget of £200.

1. A track day was out of the questions as I couldn't afford the cars that were faster than ours.

2. Swimming with sharks - Again costs too much.

3. Whale watching - hmmm.... Not in Southampton.

4. Anything for the car - I'm a girl, I only know where the dipstick and windscreen wiper wash is!

So in my infinite wisdom and expert listening skills, I searched for clues over the past 6 months for something that would fit the bill. The one that I picked up on again and again was that he would like to experience going to the Opera. This was like finding the ball in a rugby scrum, I picked up the ball and ran with it!

By luck I found tickets to see the English National Opera in Pirates of Penzance at the London Coliseum on eBay TING! I found a 5 star Hotel offer on LastMinute.com TING! And I booked the National Express funfare coach tickets online also for a bargain deal TING!

I had found all the ingredients for a corking night out in London and one that Deacon would not have experienced before. I even managed to keep it a secret for 2 whole months.. What could go wrong....

LOTS!

Coach journey from hell - Stuck opposite stinky drunk man, apart from Deacon, with girl listing to exceeding loud pants music for the whole journey.

Tube - We really are sardines!

Hotel - 5 Stars my arse! The room was a shoebox with dirty windows and peeling paint on the ceiling (before you ask, we are English so therefore do not complain, just moan about it afterwards!)

Meal out - Deacon's steak was like leather. Service was good though. Managed to sink 2 bottles of wine in an hour...

Opera - We were pissed, nearly late, ran in and were told off my the staff, Opera is definitely way too cultured for us, even if it was in English and is a familiar story....And... Deacon fell asleep, 5 TIMES.

This was therefore my planning completely out of the window. Having said that we had a fantastic time after all that. We went to the cinema in Leicester Square and paid £23 for 2 tickets to see Bridget Jones - Edge of Reason....funny film! We went sight seeing at 11 o'clock at night, sat in the hotel bar pretending that we were posh (hardly) until we got even more drunk and bounced off of the walls back to our room.

Next day we got up early (still drunk no doubt) had breakfast and went sightseeing again on the way to the London Aquarium.

We got on the coach to come home - incidentally the coach driver got lost! Then picked up Little Man (Bless him - he is gorgeous) and Naughty Pixie from my mums then used to force to drive home and fall into bed.

All in all it was certainly a different experience for Deacon's 30th.

Moral to the story: I guess it doesn't matter what you arrange to do, we had a blast just being together. If you can look back on a day and just one moment makes you smile, it was worth it.