THROWBACK THURSDAY: A Snapshot In Time

My arrival at the pub in London, being surprised by the appearance of my old friends...

As I look ahead to my 60th birthday later this year, I can't help but reminisce about my brilliant 50th birthday celebrations.

One of the many highlights was a "surprise university reunion" that Paul organised in a London pub with a gaggle of my old university buddies from Bournemouth.

Wayne - these days a professional photographer - snapped some incredible images of the day, as well as a selection of stylish portraits.

Here's a small sampling of his amazing photography.

Me and the missus...

Portrait of Jon...

Paul, Pricey and I pretend The Lord Mayor's Show fireworks are for me...

Yours Truly: Dressed To Impress...

Best Of Friends: Lou and Rosie

Paul & Rachel

Jon, Paul, and Lou

Paul - part of Wayne's portrait project

Rachel broke her glass, but still managed to hold on to her wine...

Rosie and Midge wend their way home after the reunion...

Group shot (taken by Rachel, after coaching from Wayne on how to use his camera)

Something arty to end with...

THROWBACK THURSDAY: How Many 50-Year-Olds Have Superhero-Themed Birthday Parties? Not Enough

The 'Must-Eat League': from left - Richard, Erica, Paul, Jeni, Pete, Me, Nick, and Clare...

The month of celebrations for my half-century (in 2016) came to an end with a superhero-themed meal at the Oriental Buffet in Tonbridge, with a loose comic book-inspired dress code.

You can't really go wrong with an all-you-can-eat dining experience, accentuated by a selection of T-shirts and outfits that ran the gamut from Richard's Batman shirt (he wore the plastic Bat-mask for 90 per cent of the evening as well, which was true dedication to the theme) to Jeni's She-ra costume (complete with gauntlets and headgear) and Rachel's bespoke Marvel comic book dress.

As well as having decorated our table ahead of time with appropriate balloons (several of which also survived the journey home afterwards), my wonderful wife still had one gobsmacking surprise up her sleeve: the best birthday cake ever!

Based on Des Taylor's design from my main birthday present, it was the scumptious, double-decker cake you can see below (created by a local cake aficionado), complete with Acrobatic Flea, Flash, and Supergirl decorations:

BEST. CAKE. EVER!

BEST. WIFE. EVER!

Special mention has to be made of how Paul turned up at our door, before we went to the restaurant. The doorbell rang, and I opened the door to be greeted by The Black Power Ranger!

Apparently he'd changed into his superhero alter ego outside our house (although I still suspect he'd travelled down from London on the train like this, only he'd used super-ninja skills to blend in with the crowd).

Sadly, the costume was too uncomfortable - and totally impractical - for going to a restaurant in. But major kudos for borrowing this outfit and throwing himself into the spirit of the evening!

What Is Seen Cannot Be Unseen: Alice has no clue as to what is happening at this point!

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Gallivanting At The Coast

The main part of my 50th birthday week (in 2016) was spent at The Gallivant, a lovely dog-friendly hotel at Camber Sands, on the South Coast.

Because we were celebrating my special day, the hotel gave us a complimentary room upgrade, along with a bottle of champers.

Although we'd brought Alice's bed from home, the hotel had provided her with her own bed, but she preferred to share our massive (and extremely comfortable) bed.

We were all rather taken with the sliding partitions that allowed the bath to be part of the main bedroom, meaning - if one so desired - it was possible to take a bath and watch the room's big screen TV!

We arrived on my birthday, and after we'd settled into the room, Rachel had arranged for me to have a relaxing, hour-long, massage, after which we took Alice for a walk to a pub down the road - The Owl - where we had a table booked for dinner.

After dinner, and a couple of free drinks with the landlord, we returned to our hotel room to watch The Martian on DVD (borrowed from the hotel's extensive DVD library).

On Thursday we took Alice for a walk on the beach at Camber Sands - during a howling gale! The poor puppy nearly got blown over as we battled against the wind and bullet-like rain. It was a struggle, but wonderfully atmospheric and oh so British!

That afternoon, we drove to Rye and treated ourselves to a meal in The Globe Inn Marsh, another very dog-friendly pub.

Alice was a big hit wherever we went, with people doting on her, giving her treats and cuddles, and she lapped it up. Although, I think, she was a bit bemused by the constantly changing environment, and all the new sights, sounds, and smells, she seemed to relish all the love and attention.

We should definitely return to The Gallivant.

It was a bit windy on the beach...

Alice doing her famous "floating head" trick as Rachel takes a picture of me taking a picture...

THROWBACK THURSDAY: BEST. PRESENT. EVER!

Back in 2016, I turned 50.  It would be quite gauche to list all the amazing presents I got from friends and family for successfully reaching my half-century, but I have to share with you this incredible gift that Rachel gave me.

She commissioned a one-of-a-kind piece of art from DC Comics artist Des Taylor (also one of the co-hosts of Sky Television's DC Fancast), featuring not only a race between television's Flash and Supergirl, but also a cameo by my very own Acrobatic Flea!!!

Does this make the Flea part of the DCU? Probably not, but I can dream.

The picture now hangs in pride of place at the top of our main staircase.

In pride of place

At the time, Des presented Sky One's sadly short-lived "Arrowverse" companion show, DC Fancast, along with Bec Hill and Rick Edwards, recapping and discussing episodes of The Flash, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl.

This was where I came to appreciate his art and mentioned this to Rachel, as my "special" birthday was approaching.

Currently Des is probably best known as the creator of Titan Comics' Scarlett Couture, as well as being a frequent contributor to one of the best online comic book resources, 13th Dimension.

With the picture, Des included some of his initial sketches as well, so I also have wonderful black and white illustrations of the Flea, Flash, and Supergirl, which I still need to get framed at some stage.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Places Wot I Lived In

During my 50th birthday weekend return to Bournemouth (as covered last week), Paul was able to direct us to all the old houses we had stayed in during our three-year stint as students (20 years earlier!).

Above you can see the former guest house that I was billeted in during my first term (we were assigned accommodation initially by the university, but as mature students - I was 28 at the time - we were sent out into the sticks, stuck in random guest houses or family homes who liked the extra income).

In this first term, Paul was in a family home on the other side of the graveyard opposite my guest house.

After that first term, a few of us got together and moved to "Len & Jenny's house" - called that after the landlords. 

Len & Jenny's

Len and Jenny's was an old, cold, house, with a dark green Victorian colour scheme. I had the downstairs room (which necessitated me sleeping in an old jumper and a track suit most nights to stay warm).

Eventually we moved to our final house, which was a five-minute walk from university (hooray!). Although the rooms were allocated by lots, I was allowed to take the master bedroom - which you can see below, peeking over the hedge - which was gorgeous, bright and airy.

I posted pictures of my surprisingly neat room back in January.

The best house we stayed in...

And as a little bonus to our jaunt down memory lane, Paul and I were able to point out to Rachel the barber's shop, just round the corner from our final house, where we had got frequent haircuts.

Sadly, it appears to have (possibly only recently) finally gone out of business.

Yes, we did...

THROWBACK THURSDAY: To Bournemouth And Back

Paul and I outside our alma mater

For my 50th birthday, back in 2016, Paul arranged with Rachel for the three of us to make a flying visit back to Bournemouth, where Paul and I had gone to university, studying Scriptwriting for Film and TV.

Alice was dropped off with Rachel's parents, the neighbours agreed to look after Barney, and we were off.

We rendezvoused with Paul (who'd travelled down from London by train, while we drove from Tonbridge) at our wonderful seafront hotel, then went round the corner to an old Beatles-themed café where we had lunch.

After that we headed to Poole, so I could I could pick up my latest shipment of comics from Andy at Paradox Comics, before heading back towards Bournemouth.

We dropped in to the main university campus, to have a drink at the student union (Dylan's) and a wander round, to show Rachel where we'd been "educated".

Not only were we slightly baffled by the lack of the students (or the fact that nobody asked us who we were and why we were wandering round) but also by the ease with which we wandered in and out of several lecture theatres!

Paul had phoned ahead to clear our visit, but neither the security guards nor the bar staff at Dylan's batted an eyelid as we sauntered in, or asked to see any ID.

Our next stop was the town centre Wetherspoon's The Moon In The Square - for drinks and a meal - that we had frequented often as students, before ending the evening with a beverage at O'Neills (another favourite haunt from our days on the south coast).

In O'Neills there appeared to be a band setting up, so - although there was nowhere to sit - I said I was quite keen to stay and see a live show.

However, the band spent, what felt like, about an hour going through their sound check, played half a song and walked off. It was most peculiar. Whether they actually got round to ever playing a full song, or even a set, we'll never know as we'd finished our drinks and decided to head back to the hotel.

On Sunday, it was an all-you-eat fry-up at the hotel before we drove out to the "suburbs" to see where we'd lived all those years ago.

We then dropped Paul off at the railway station and headed home ourselves (stopping off to pick up Alice on the way).

Although there had been a lot of improvements made to Bournemouth in the 20 years since we lived there, what was really noticeable on the Saturday evening and night was the paucity of obvious students.

There were stag parties, locals and tourists, but we didn't see more than a handful of students (even at Dylan's) until we passed a mammoth queue on Sunday morning outside the town centre student union venue (The Old Fire Station) which was hosting a vintage clothes sale!

It was a great weekend, full of some incredible reminiscing and the usual mix of anecdotes and BS. Instead of making me feel like an old man (even though the phrase "well, that was 20 years ago" got a lot of airings), it actually, for a moment, made me feel young again.

I have great friends!

Childish conversations in The Moon In The Square

Rachel enjoying her wine in The Moon In The Square