Received an unexpected phone call from my brother this morning informing me that by coincidence, he was in Brighton with Julie and James. We wandered down to the beach to join them, passing the rowdy Brighton Pride celebrations on the way. James was so sweet, as soon as he saw me he threw himself into my arms and gave me a big hug. The beach in Brighton is a bit too pebbly and steep to be paddling when your little, so I suggested we stroll down to the play area further along the beach near the West Pier ruins. James had a lovely time and it was nice catching up with Philip and Julie too. It’s amazing how much energy James has, he runs around like a mad thing, he was in and out of the water, and up and down climbing frames over and over again. I’m surprised that Philip can keep up with him!

After months of keeping it a secret, it was a huge relief last night when Paul and Andy finally told Mike that his surprise birthday present is a trip to see the opera at Glyndebourne tomorrow. When they told him he was in Brighton for a surprise, you could see the fear in his face as he imagined all the surprise things he’d hate. Thankfully when told fear turned to joy and disbelief – he thought that you can only get tickets to Glyndebourne if you’re minted or have a title.

My big relief was that Mike’s new evening suit (that had taken much planning and conspiracy to acquire and have transported to Brighton) fitted him and looks lovely too. The finishing touch was the bicycle cufflinks I tracked down for him, he likes these very much. So all that’s left to do now is go and collect my suit from M&S and then we’re all set for the opera.

We made our final ‘mad after work dash’ of the summer season yesterday to catch the train up to London for the late-night Prom: Steve Reich. It was fantastic (check out the clapping piece, very smart), you can see the details and hear some snippets here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/whats-on/2011/august-10/41

The Royal Albert Hall was packed full of trendy young people (skinny jeans, square black-framed glasses, beards and short back and sides hair dos, lots of fixed-gear cycles tied up outside – you probably know the sort). Mainly (but not exclusively) men and unusually for a concert the queues were for the gent’s loos, but not the women’s.

The prevalence of men made Mike comment that he thought this kind of music, (it’s a musical style called minimalism) was attractive to a kind of ‘autistic men’ – of which he thought he was probably one!!! I was not in entire agreement, as I enjoyed it and don’t class myself in that category. My take on it was that from the look of the queues, this style of music simply attracts the prostately-challenged male!

After a very late finish (11.30am) we decided we’d stay over at the Hoxton Hotel and so we’ve got a day in London to enjoy. Will probably do some nice mooching around. Alas will have to catch up on some work emails at some point but given that there are now less than two weeks before our bicycling adventure begins, there is too much to be done before then.

So much for the ‘early to bed’ intentions, it now half past midnight and we’ve just got back from London after a lovely Prom concert (Sibelius, Grieg and another Nordic composer who has gone right out of my head just now). (Mike edit:- it was Karl Neilson’s symphony no. 4 – the ‘Inextinguishable’). The journey from the Albert Hall back to Paddington proved to be more exciting, (or should that be stressful), than we’d imagined. Mike’s bike key wouldn’t unlock a bike, I managed to unlock one at the second docking station in Hyde Park. So Mike said he’d run back to Paddington, (he’s quite a good runner these days) (Mike edit:- aw shucks, thanks!), while I cycled.

All well until Paddington and the nearest two docking stations were full! This was especially ironic as they were empty when we wanted to take bikes when we arrived earlier in the evening. I eventually had to cycle to a third docking station quite a way from the railway station, but I could at least tell from my iPhone app. that there were spaces at that one. It was then a case of sprinting back to Paddington and making the train with moments to spare. While I think that potentially I could be ok at running, I don’t think it is an advisable sporting activity to undertake when carrying a cycle pannier and wearing a rain mac.

The forecast for the American west coast for late August and September looks promising at the moment, but I think one needs to be prepared for a variety of weather. New ‘zip off’ legs trousers will provide the choice of long or short trousers, Rapha merino wool base layer T-shirts should do for warm and cool and now I have lovely pink neck tube, (not sure that’s the correct term) (Mike edit:- it’s called a buff), for my birthday from Aileen and Martin. Perfect for protecting the neck from both chilly breezes or strong sun.

It’s been rather a quite birthday, worked part of the day but finished around 2pm and have mooched around not doing very much. It was an indulgent treat to be able to have a little afternoon siesta, it made me think that introducing a day bed in the office wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Had a nice pile of lovely birthday cards to open this morning, including this very apt one featuring a touring cyclist’s camp from Jean and Syd. This will be us in just over three weeks, (minus the tent), looking forward to lots of Pacific Ocean sunsets just like this one.

We’ve been practicing some high-speed cycling today in preparation for our holiday. The only trouble is that travelling at high speed on a Transport for London (TFL) hire bike is heavy going!

After work we travelled up to London for tonight’s Prom (Sibelius No 7, Bartók Piano Concerto No 3 and Janáček Sinfonietta), well worth the effort, but travelling back from the Albert Hall to Paddington to catch the 22.15 return train to Bristol required some seriously strenuous pedalling – but as we did it in ten minutes I’d say that is a promising sign for our USA trip.