Thirty-two

The morning started a bit bumpy because I had to get up before 8am (that's early for me!) to make sure I was around for when they delivered my Blu-ray player, but it actually turns out they didn't even try and deliver it at all. Boo. Sadly the getting up so early meant I only had about 3 hours sleep so I felt quite drained, but it was still a good day!

I wasn't expecting many cards in the post, but I was really happy to receive 16 in total. Amusingly 4 of my 16 cards came from MoonPig.com, but all completely different and I loved them all!

Gail was kind enough to send me some presents in the post which after unwrapping turned out to be 3 more great books for my collection. These were: All ten chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny, High Fidelity by Nick Hornby and Bellwether by Connie Willis. I have lots of things to read now, I need more time! :) Thank you! :)

I went to work and found an "empty" box in reception, or at least it felt like an empty box. I got it to my desk, opened it... and a balloon flew out to the ceiling:


Thank you Michelle, that totally took me by surprise and it was like a movie moment the way it flew out the box! She's also kindly put some chocolates in the box too, although I haven't eaten them yet - but I bet they taste great though :) The balloon also served as a good "prompt" and everyone who came in for the rest of the day then said "Ooh is it your birthday?" - Fantastic :)

I received 2 emails, 11 text greetings, 4 Twitter messages, 1 Facebook message/email and a rather incredible 94 messages/comments on my Facebook wall. Wow.

That's not even the total number of messages, that's 94 different people! I cannot express how popular that made me feel! Interestingly there were no actual phonecalls, but I guess that's how society has changed and I'm certainly not bitter, it's only now I even thought about it!

After work I went round my parents as planned. Mum didn't know what dinner to make me that I'd enjoy so she'd just decided to make a full roast dinner (even had stuffing!) and it was yummy! :) After dinner I opened the presents that my parents, my aunt/uncle, my brother and his girlfriend had got me:


That's all the presents/cards that I received and as you might notice there are a LOT of books! There are the three Gail got me as mentioned above and my parents bought my the Harry Potter collection (yes I know I'm a bit behind, I'm still working on the Twilight saga too!). However, if that wasn't enough, my brother got my the three Lord of the Rings books (black books, slightly off to the left with yellow/red/green circle on each) and also "The Hobbit". Blimey. I have a LOT to read!

I also received another Lego game (Lava Dragon), a make my own bouncy ball kit (cool!), grow my own Triop sea monsters, the "ultimate" puzzle (apparently!), Horse Racing game night (fun DVD home "event" with friends) and Haribo sweets. Epic! After opening the presents we tried out the new Lava Dragon game and it was pretty cool:


I'm getting quite a collection of them now! They're all pretty quick, but I think that's good, you don't get bored and you can make your own rules up/they actively encourage you to make changes (like Lego itself!). Finally my mother brought out the cake which possibly needs some explanation. Every year she makes something based on what I'm into at the time or related to the presents that I've had and so this year she decided to do:


Haha cool eh? Both my brother and I straight away pointed out the lightning bolt was all wrong, but I also stressed it didn't really matter and that I thought it was great. It also tasted fantastic too, so who cares if it's not 100% accurate! :)