525,600 Minutes

1,028,160 minutes Today is my birthday and I am 26 years of age. It has been 1,028,160 minutes since I last blogged. Since my last blog I quit my last job and returned to University to do a masters degree and am now ironically I am back in a job doing what I was doing before I left University and for my troubles I find myself 2 years older. Is this self pity or whining? no just resignation to the fact I am getting older. A fact I only came to terms with late last night in a Tesco car park thanks to a 1 litre bottle of Strawberry Smoothie with Yoghurt. Last week Monday during lunch I first bought a Strawberry Smoothie with Yoghurt and noticed the best before date was the 9th August, again last night after a late night walk in Hampton Court I dropped by my local Tesco and bought another bottle of my current infatuation which had the same expiry date although sold a week later. Was this a coincidence or could it be that they simply had the same stock ? - “bah !! neither!” I thought. I totally understood the message loud and clear!!! it was unambiguous, “My youth was to expire on the 9th of August !!!” a point cruelly and deceptively driven home first by the delightful chilled gush of tangy strawberry followed by the bold rough stamp of a use-by-date spelling out my fate. Instantly I dropped my head in my hands. This lasted only for a moment because suddenly I found hope, as if a light bulb suddenly shone bright in my mind. This time it wasn’t delusion but a realization that resigning myself to the fate of growing older was also to be my saving grace. Now at 26 I no longer had to be afraid of success or hide behind the excuse of being too young to grab hold of my dreams. A new path had just opened, a second but final rite of passage. Never before had I experienced despair followed so quickly by hope. All that was missing was a bright light which came in the form of Classic FM playing the theme tune to The Man of La Mancha. From despair I felt sudden over excitement. Could it be that like Cervantes’ character - Don Quixote, glory awaited me ? – I had no doubt about it. To me Don Quixote although a hapless romantic is a brave Knight who takes a road in a quest to restore the age of chivalry, battle all evil, and right all wrongs and he was to be my model. Suddenly I had a justification for my renewed interest in comic books. I saw it no longer as denial I was in the last throws of my youth but my subconscious embracing a more idealist me. Right there in my car like a Knight of old I took an oath which only death will keep me from fulfilling and that will be never to seek out a girl other than out of the truest of motives…. The rest I would figure out later. I was given a birthday card today by people at work with a picture of a woman’s bust and a badge saying “I know what women want”. After musing over this celluloid clevage for a moment or three, I chuckled. They were fools!! For they really couldn’t have been any further from the sentiments in my heart. Well you may say I am reading too much into a Strawberry Smoothie with Yoghurt but to me it serves as a chance to prompt me to positively refocus my targets and realize my goals, which for me includes a sweeping review on everything from relationships to what I eat and surely that can’t be a bad thing. I have decided that at lunch time today I will head to WHSmiths and buy some cookery books and also a copy of Cervantes classic novel – Don Quixote. I hope to post pics of some of my kitchen exploits here on my blog so please watch this space. The world we live in is far from ideal kids, a point solemnly highlighted to me by the fact I also share my birthday with the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki made all the more depressing by the fact we live in a world not much more peaceful. My dear reader, the world is in trouble, and I shall offer more of a political perspective later. … but for now let me assure you my blog is well and truly back !