When do you officially start to feel old? I do not ask this question, today just because I turn 27 next Sunday. I ask because I feel I have come to one of those milestone moments in my life. I have been invited to the christening of my good school friend Jenny’s second son, Aiden at the end of December. There is no question on my attendance, I will be there. However, the invitation, which I received over a month ago and has been sitting on my table, was a bit of a bombshell. I really am getting old. I thought the first waves of weddings (which thank God, have come to a slowdown recently) was one thing but to be invited to a christening to not their first son (Aaron, who is already three, I think!). It is moments like this, when you think about what you truly have achieved and where live is taking you.

A quick weekend roundup, what have I been up to? Well Saturday I got up at just before 9am and while I was about to make breakfast, the buzzer went. I was not expecting anyone. It was the postman (wearing shorts in mid November!). I had a package, I was not expecting anything but then realised it might be an early birthday present. As tempting as it was to open the box, I resisted temptation and left it under the table. Not decided whether to take it home and open with family next week or wait until I return to the flat, quite late in the evening. After breakfast, I jumped on the computer and started to go through my head my plans for the day. Bicester Village was off the menu, as I had not heard from Ricki. I settled down to Click and then Football Focus before finally getting into action mode. I put on some washing and then tidied the flat and went to the bins with all my recyclable rubbish. I then decided to catch up on some of the ‘additional’ television shows, which I had downloaded but not seen. I have a confession to make, although Life On Mars is my favourite David Bowie song (ever since it was used for a 3 mobile television advert). However, I have never seen any of the BBC TV show with the same name, although I did see the end credits when the song plays again in modern 2008. Having said all of that, I hard a US version was being made and I got hold of the first seven episodes and watched the first one yesterday afternoon. Excellent stuff but I have nothing to compare it against which is a good thing in a way. I may take the final step and download the original BBC version but for the moment, I am enjoying the 1973 New York. I then watched Fringe, if you can recall, Pav missed out episode three from my care packages, so I had to wait until I had broadband to obtain this myself and then watch the shows. Today I watched episode four, the show is very good but you feel it is just X-Files with a slightly different team of people doing the investigating. Although the relationship between Peter and Walter is perhaps the second biggest draw, after finding out more about The Pattern. You will notice that Peter never calls his Dad or Father, he refers to him by his first name. Nobody can hate their parent that much, that they would recreate such a distance between themselves even in conversation. I am looking forward to watching the rest of the series, I may even watch another episode in a few minutes when this blog post is updated. After watching Final Score, I was disappointed with the result from North London, so put the TV off and decide to tidy up my room for a while before getting ready for with pizza (sorry turning into a staple diet) and then TV Burp, closely followed by The X Factor. I was rather disappointed with the choice of songs. There are so many fantastic British artists and songs in the back catalogue, but the second half of the show, were poor songs in my opinion. As I predicted, Daniel went out and rightly so. I skipped on MOTD, I would catch the Arsenal defeat first thing this morning before I headed to the gym. I then went to my room to watch Step Brothers. It was good with some very funny moments but it was very gross, but I expect nothing more from the same producers of Knocked Up and Super Bad. I feel asleep around 2am. I got up at 7.30am, had a quick breakfast, saw the Arsenal Villa match on MOTD repeat on BBC1 and then headed out to the gym. A good work out, although it was still quite busy for a Sunday morning. I got into my car at exactly 9am and headed back to the flat. Time to get some chores done. My second ski trip takes place in January. The 10th January to be precise, for seven days. How do I feel? Excited? Actually I am very apprehensive, more so than this time last year? Why? Well because this time last year, I had no idea of what to actually expect. Apart from my few days on the Snowdome at Milton Keynes it was all a new experience. I was sheltered from the true reality by having lessons for the four days and only spending the final day with my friends. However, this time around I am extremely nervous. We are going to France, to the resort of Tignes and have rented a chalet for the week between seven of us. I do have a ski buddy, in the form of Ben (friend of Geoff, who went on the last trip) but that is not enough. I am very conscious of not repeating the same performance of last year. Making my friends wait and ruining the last day, or at least last few hours of skiing. Is this truly the sport for me? Perhaps it is just all talk, the moment you come off the slopes and suddenly feel, now that you are save on solid ground, you could be an Olympic champion. I have not made any confirmed plans, but I have an inkling that I am just going to get a few more lessons first to get my confidence up, improve my technique before I hit the slopes. I just do not feel it would be worthwhile going to Bracknell at the moment. Even though Pav keeps bugging me. I feel it is really easy for people like him to take these kinds of extreme, “Pepsi-Max” sports. He has no fear. People like me (generally everybody else) take a considerable amount of time to get our confidence levels to a point where we feel comfortable to hit the slopes. If I am truly honest, I wish I was not going. If I could sell my place on eBay, I would. The trip has started to become a little bit of annoyance rather than something to look forward to as it was a year ago. Hopefully things will be different by the time I get to the strange in between time before Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I am hoping that things are different. I am sure Pav and the rest of my friends are hoping the same. For those of you, who would like to know about my adventures from this January (feels like a long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away), you can go and read the epic blog posts which start on 12th January. Pav wanted a countdown timer, I do not feel it is required. I might change my mind, but I only count down to things I (along with perhaps a collective of people) are looking forward to! Am I truly looking forward to the ski trip? Well, yes the social side, the journey, the scenery, the laughs with big T. It’s just a shame the days have to be filled with the past time of skiing.