Half a century

I'm 50! In fact, as I'm writing this in late March, I've been 50 for nearly a month. 

I'd been a bit angsty in the run-up to my birthday. It wasn't so much turning 50, as the fact that the next 'big' birthday after that is 60. Feeling my mortality a little, perhaps. Anyhow, I didn't want a lot of fuss, so on the day itself Mr Robot and I went for lunch at what's probably my favourite restaurant in Bath, Chez Dominique. I got given some lovely jewellery, including earrings from my husband and a silver dragon pendant from my father and stepmother, vouchers for other places I like to eat in Bath, and book tokens. 

Those book tokens were well-spent. I dropped into Toppings, one of Bath's excellent indie bookshops, and got two hardback beauties: Pretty Gentlemen: Macaroni Men & The 18th-Century Fashion World and Death: A Graveside Companion (how could I resist a lavishly-illustrated book containing over 1,000 images of morbit artworks?). Really I only had the vouchers for one or the other, but as I mentioned in my last post, I'm trying to say YES more instead of thinking myself out of things, and so I got both books. Let's face it, gothic art and vintage menswear is very me.

The weekend after Mothering Sunday Mr Robot and I spent a couple of nights in Norwich. I hadn't wanted my family to come and see me for my birthday – really wasn't in the mood for a lot of fuss – but I'm well aware that I'm fortunate to have my family, and the older members won't be around forever. We stayed in Norwich so we could enjoy evenings out, but we saw mum every day, and on the Saturday had lunch with mum, her partner, and my brother. (His family were invited but didn't come.) 

The front of our hotel, St Giles House Hotel

We stayed at St Giles House Hotel – it's really nicely located in the centre, but has parking too. The building was formerly an insurance head office, and the front and public rooms are very grand. One of the staff told us the basement (which dates from the 15th century) links up to the tunnels under the city and was used in wartime, as the people organising the war effort avoided taking to the streets. 

I really liked wandering round Norwich. When I was a kid, we'd go to the city one weekend a month for a day out with my dad (my parents were divorced by then), and it was fun seeing what had changed and what was the same. The city centre still has a very medieval layout and the council seems to have resisted the high-rises plaguing most cities, and as such it feels very human in scale. It's also a city where people live in the centre, it's not all students and Air BnB, and so there are things like ironmongers and a bustling market, and loads of indie shops. The hippie shop that always seemed vaguely intimidating to me as a youngster was still there, the costume jewellery shop where I bought so many of my teenage treasures (though rather tackier nowadays – or maybe it always was and I hadn't realised), and, best of all, The Games Room, which helped make me the nerd I am today, is still on Elm Hill. I was so pleased to see it. And yes, I went in and bought some miniatures. It was a lovely trip. 

This unassuming shop was crucial to my nerdery...

Anyway, I shall end this post here. I have been saying YES to other things (a weekend talk on gothic fiction, tickets to see Nosferatu with live organ accompaniment later in the year), and fate has been saying NO to others (our cattery is fully booked, so no trip for our wedding anniversary this year, sob!) But more on all those things in future...