Daughter's suggestion for dinner tonight was jacket potato with a little butter and cheese and some salad. That's what we had and it was tasty, simple, filling and reminiscent of a pub lunch. We'll be having that again.

I went out for a cracking walk with my parents today. I've been itching for a good walk for a few weeks although the weather's never been particularly handy. There was a cold wind in exposed sections which really blew out the cobwebs but was very refreshing after storming up a couple of good hills. Lunch was taken at the wonderful remains of a Roman villa and I had a nice time wandering around the site before filling myself up with home-made venison pasties and half a can of Budweiser. It was only six and a half miles but it really did me a lot of good and I'll be trying to get some more exercise - swimming hopefully - this week in response to the lack of walking time I'm getting.

With some of my birthday money I bought a few games on ebay. The stand-out of the three games I bought is Okami which I'm so incredibly pleased with it has already surpassed its £10.50 price tag and I'd have happily considered paying full price for it. It's simply beautiful and beautifully simple, it stands up next to the Zelda games in terms of depth of story and character and it seems a proportion of Twilight Princess was inspired by this title. It's vast and has major exploration value in many little side-quests and points of interest and I regard it very highly, so much so that I may not resell it on ebay as I'd intended, rather keep it to play again in the future or to give as a gift.

My good friend brought her Malaysian travelling friend over to hang out with daughter and I while she went to a class. Sean was a nice guy, good company and seemed to enjoy playing Wii all night which is pretty much all we did other than chatter. I really enjoyed myself although I didn't get to sleep until late which ruined me for the next day.

It was my birthday today! I had a busy day at work, raced to recover a sick daughter from school and get her to the doctors straight after work, round to my folk's to collect cards and a nice financial surprise, then shot home so daughter could make an appointment. After a couple of hours messing on the Playstation I scrubbed-up, a couple of great friends arrived and took me into town first for a pint then across the road for Italian food. The company was fantastic - some of my favourite people - the food was good and I managed to not get completely pissed, which was a welcome difference from birthdays past. A couple of us went back to my place to chill and play games and I had a lovely night which I'll remember as one of my better birthdays, as opposed to thinking it was good through a drunken haze.