Well the Big Birthday Weekend was a busy and fun one. And one that held no regard for remaining in the constraints of a two-day weekend.

Having just about recovered from the bike ride on Sunday I discovered the photos were already available for purchase. I found three I liked and this is probably the favourite (about 30 minutes from the finish line)

Although you cannot see much of the scenery you can get a feeling for the grand-ness of the location and the  quality of the weather on the day.

I’m looking forward to the next Bike challenge in a month’s time!

The evening’s entertainment was in Blackpool, my first visit of 2014! Rather than running or cycling around it, this time was purely entertainment, seeing Pet Shop Boys live in concert, for the first time for me in 23 years!

And it was good. Very good. The songs speak for themselves but the laser/lighting display was top notch and really made for a quality evening. It amused me that I was going to a pop concert where

• There was a bar
• It was in a ballroom
• The average age was about 40 so I didn’t feel like a creepy parent at a kid’s show!

There were some differences to the last time I went to see what one might call a ‘popular’ act live. For a start, last time, there were no mobile phones being waved in the air – trying to do that in the 1990s would lead to hernias and ruptured muscles and probably result in several people being flattened under a house-brick-sized handset.

I struggle to understand why people try to record the gig on their mobile; surely it cannot be as much fun to be there and really, are you going to watch it in small screen on your computer afterwards? And is it likely to have any of the impact seeing the gig first-hand (when you were recording it)?

A strange world. In fact, if you want to see some of the photos from the gig, the local newspaper has done a handy slideshow here!

Helpfully since the gig I’ve discovered they’ve done a nice promo video themselves which can be found here:

And today really was a day of not doing much. I didn’t even bake anything, although I did go for a run and I did wipe all the software off my own mobile phone. Just because I can! I did some pilates too but it wasn’t very exciting!