Plenty to celebrate today

We are celebrating a 'special' birthday today, as my husband Clive moves into a new decade. There will cake and fine dining.

We had a pre-birthday trip out on Wednesday to Bletchley Park. Have you been? It's fascinating. I thought I knew the story, but there is so much more to it than I'd realised. I didn't know, for instance, that Enigma machines were widely available for commercial use before the war. We were lucky enough to be at Bletchley when they were demonstrating the enormous Bombe machine that clicked and whirred to check the decoders' theories. When we got home we watched The Imitation Game.

Three things struck me: the sheer genius of everyone who worked on this project; how boring it must have been; but mostly what a sad story it is. Poor Alan Turing doing his best for king and country, saving millions of lives and taking years off the war, but charged with indecency and driven to suicide just because he was gay. He was only 41; what a waste.

Sorry - went all gloomy. Back to the celebrating.

Clive: what a cherub.

Yesterday's pre-birthday outing took us to Melton Mowbray to pick up a ridiculous quantity of home brewing kit purchased via eBay. (Purchased, note, not won. It annoys me that you 'win' an auction when actually you could say that because you are the highest bidder you have technically lost, because you are paying more than anyone else thinks the lot is worth.) Naturally, on the way home we had to stop at Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe to pick up one of Dickinson & Morris's finest.

It's my baby brother's birthday on Easter Sunday, too, so there's plenty to feel pleased about this weekend, despite the weather. Sorry, nearly went gloomy again!

Have a good weekend, folks. 

To be part of the Celebrate the Small Things blog hop, all you have to do is put your name on the linky list on Lexa's Blog, and then post every Friday about something you're grateful  for that week.