Saturday, 19 April 2008

40 years and 40 beers!....

It was Russells 40th and we were all invited round to commiserate...I mean celebrate. There was some really nice champers....
....if only we could get it open!
Lots of cards. I KNEW I'd forgotten something.
Plus balloons. A proper party!
I searched and searched for some 'Lancaster Bomber' beer (Russells current favourite), but couldn't find it anywhere. I later discovered that they sold it at my local wine merchant. Typical, I didn't check there!
As compensation I brought along the 'Drinko-matic-4000' drinking hand to help make alcohol consumption less of a chore.
We were presented with some smoked salmon which had lingered in the cupboard upon its return from Seattle for near on five years. There was no 'use by' date and we reckoned that if we all drank enough strong alcohol any germs would die anyway. It was surprisingly nice, but did later dominate the room and make its presence known!
The automatic drinking hand proved itself to be a versatile piece of equipment being equally competent at handling nibbles.
Although the guidance system needed some tinkering.
As the evening became more blurry and confusing, a shoe appeared on the table. It turned out to be a pleasing strong lemon drink in a shoe shaped bottle. Once wrestled from Jennys grip (she thought it would ruin the look of it if we drank it) it was avidly consumed. Along with a variety of other drinks and chocolate liqueurs.
The drinko-matic hand suited Jon quite well until....
...suddenly and unexpectedly it turned on him. Obviously not conversant with the three laws of robotics, it attacked its master, first going for the eyes then force feeding him with three spring rolls dipped in hot peri sauce all at once. The mechanical hand was subdued. I'm sure the twins will love it.
All in all a top evening.
Thanks Russell for inviting us and turning 40 before me!
Thanks to Maxine for the seemingly never ending supply of yummy eating nibbles.