A busy 'birthday'

Despite my general distaste for the idea of birthday celebrations (and a certain paralysing lethargy which has been dogging me for some weeks), yesterday's 'big day' turned out to be not soooo bad.

It included:

Afternoon tea with two of my favourite ladies (mother and daughter)

A first-beer-of-the-day and a quiet read in the soothing atmosphere of The Bookworm

Sharing a quick dinner (one of the few decent burgers to be had in this town) with Tulsa

Seeing the final recital by the group of touring Indian classical musicians I'd been repeatedly failing to catch up with for the last week-and-a-half (and, at long last, getting to meet the lovely Hortense, who had helped to arrange the event)

Following that up, for contrast (and a bit of a wake-up!), with a rock'n'roll gig at one of my neighbourhood music bars

Not bad. Not bad at all. But also less-than-entirely-satisfactory. I was feeling desperately exhausted and lacklustre. My lovely tea companions had to rush off to another appointment after 45 minutes. Dinner had to be compressed into a scant 15 minutes; and then Tulsa got sidetracked for the rest of the evening playing host to some work colleagues. The Indian concert was fascinating, but...... it did go on rather (I noted in a text message to a friend who had quizzed me about it: "This music is very long-winded and repetitive; kind of mesmerising - if you can lapse into trance, you're fine; but as soon as you 'wake up', it becomes ferociously boring. I was in trance most of the time..."), and I felt the need to do a runner before the last (15 or 20-minute!) piece started. The following rock gig was a big disappointment: a new laowai band, good but not great; an hour late starting; a tiny crowd; an atmosphere-free barn of a venue - again, I succumbed to the urge to quit early, after only 30 or 40 minutes this time.

But then......

Well, it was a fine night for a walk home: clear and mild, with a fat half-moon shining down on me. I strolled up the Nanluoguxiang bar street, feeling very mellow and meditative. I looked into one or two of my favourite haunts down there to see if there were any familiar faces about, but NO. I thought of stopping in to the Yacht Club for a nightcap, but resisted the temptation. But, just before I reached the top of the road, I thought - "Well, I do fancy one more drink. There are always people in the Pool Bar; and it's a cool place to hang, even if I don't know anyone. And I do know the owners, and a couple of the 'regulars'. Shall I, shan't I? Oh, what the hell...."

If I had turned left instead of right at the top of that street..... well, I would have been in bed by 12.30, and probably rueing a bit of a fizzle of a day. But I turned right, to check out the Pool Bar. It didn't look promising at first: there was no-one I knew in; the list of people waiting for the table was too long for me to have any chance of getting a game in; and Luke, the owner, was getting ready to go home. However, just the one, I thought. Qualifying for the Brazilian GP was just starting on the TV, so that would provide reasonable distraction for a while. And then.... just as I was about to leave, a friend of a friend dropped in. I'd spoken to him in there a few times before, knew him to be a decent pool player. We chatted for quite a while about this and that; I bought him a drink to celebrate the 'b-word day'; the crowd thinned out; we got our turn on the pool table after all; I was actually starting to rediscover my form, and managed to win several games in succession..... it was only with some difficulty that I finally dragged myself away around 3am.....

Good things often happen in the Pool Bar. A fine end to the day.

Well, at least that's all over for another year.