Oh Fuck, I'm 41!
Actually no real crisis this time. I've got nine years before my next age based mental slump (though might have a mini one at 45). Although it's scary how fast the year has gone by and if they carry on going this fast then I will be in my grave in but the blinking of an eye, I am actually feeling a whole lot more content with my life than I have done for ages. In spite of TV based disappointments, everything else seems to be ticking along pretty well and I like being in my forties.
And I was glad my gig got cancelled because I had a terrific day of fun and frolics, including a visit to an
Ice Bar. I never knew this place existed (it would have made an excellent venue for one of my 50 dates), but it's just off Regent Street in London and you are essentially drinking vodka in a giant fridge. They dress you up in little cloaks with fur lined hoods, which are probably unnecessary, but make you feel like you're in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and as you're all wearing them, it gives an opportunity to make a joke about how embarrassing it is that you all turned up at a party wearing the same thing!
Then you're given a vodka based cocktail which you drink out of a shot glass that is actually made out actual ice. What is it with this place and ice? They love it! There are some blocks of ice around which you can rest your drinks on and also, if you wish, put your bare warm hand against for as long as you can stand the cold to create an icy image of your own palm. There is also an ice throne that you can sit in. Personally I'd like to have seen a few more ice sculptures, maybe of some fawns that had been turned to ice by a wicked ice queen (played by me), and maybe a vodka fountain which would pour through ice and you could put your lips at the bottom and drink as much as you wanted. Maybe it's a good idea that they don't have that, as it was 4.15pm when I went in there and I only had two drinks and still felt pretty pissed.
Not as pissed as I would be later.
But hey, you're only 41 once. For a year. So I intend to spend the whole 12 months drunk off my face by way of celebration. I am, if nothing else, a man of extremes.
I am not really going to do that, but it was a special treat finding this place and it made me determined to make more of my home town and my weekends and find other little hidden treasures to visit. Especially if they are really cold and serve vodka in cups made of ice.
Apparently my notebook has turned up, so that's good news too. The people of Wedmore are, as it turns out, not thieves, or if they are they are contrite ones.
