booking birthday commiserations

I have a big milestone birthday coming up and was determined to do something fun...

I was thinking what shall I do and where should I go? After a lot of deliberations I have booked an afternoon tea at Claridges with my three best friends.

And I have booked me and James a trip to Paris on Eurostar, I have only been to Paris once before and that was back in 1992, when me and my friends (the same ones Im doing the afternoon tea with) did a coach trip to EuroDisney (as it was called then).

As with all coach trips it was full of old people (one of them was a nice doctor (she used to keep a jar of boiled sweets in her consulting room to give to the kiddies) me and one of my friends had) apart from eight of us (who were all under 30) - the tour guide called us "The EuroDisney eight". There was also a lorry driver strike at the time we went, so instead of going on the motorway from Calais to Paris we went on the back roads, which took a good 10 hours. I remember getting quite drunk on the awful wine we had with our meal that first night ;o).

I am having to renew my passport too...

...I was thinking what sort of photo should I get taken? Should I go for one depicting how Im likely to look when going through passport control? ie half asleep with my hair all over the place. or one where I have brushed my hair? (how I will definitely not be looking).

I got my pictures done this morning at the Photo-me booth, and James had a look and said "you dont look very 'appy in them" so I glared at him and said "your supposed to 'ave a neutral expression", I dont know about neutral I definitely look more miserable ;o), which I suppose will be more of my look when returning from going away!