Massive Attack & Croyde (Sam turns 30)

It's a picture frenzy again...

Friday night. Massive attack in Hyde Park. Incredible...

You know how sometimes, when you listen to an amazing piece of music, you get a rush of adrenalin that shoots through each of your arms and down through your legs, and leaves a strange tingling sensation on the back of your head? A kind of musical orgasm.

I've never been to a gig where that has happened to me so many times. Not least when Horace Andy graced the stage to sing 'the hymn of the big wheel'.

Of course, they played 'unfinished sympathy' for their encore, and the place went nuts. I was too busy going nuts at the time to take any photos of everyone else going nuts, but here's one from earlier in the set, when they weren't quite as nutty.

The last train from Paddington got me home at 2am, so I decided to make a late-morning run to Croyde on the Saturday, however this turned into an early afternoon run after picking up Benny and making a vital supermarket mission. Road works then turned a two-hour journey into three and a half hours, so Ben & I arrived at the beach just as the majority of the group had made their way back to the campsite. I asked Ben to pose for this photo...

Mark, Wendy, Dave & Anna were still there so we managed to catch some late afternoon rays with them and destroy the Pyramids & Sphinx with Mark's football. Great fun (although sorry again to Ali for taking your Sphinx's head clean off, just in case you're reading).

The campsite was lovely...

Sam didn't have long to achieve anything from his list of things to do before you're 30. I'm not sure whether getting badly sunburned was one of them...

Or indeed, learning how to play cricket...

Mind you I'm not sure he achieved that one anyway...

All very civilised really. Cricket in a campsite. Great fun though, especially as everyone joined in. Admittedly, we thought we might be there for the long haul when the girls took centre stage...

Ended controversially by Sam in a run-out. This one went to the third umpire...

Decision: Out. Bat clearly not grounded. Although were the bails dislodged?

After the game, Anna made the mission for fish'n'chips and everyone stuck their thermals on as the temperature seemed to drop from 25c to 5c in a matter of minutes. With the darkness came the inevitable drunken shenanigans, culminating in Benny eating a chocolate caramel digestive, a piece of cheese, and some French saucisson in one mouthful. I think I managed to capture the exact moment when he realised what a mistake he'd just made.

As the clock turned midnight, Sam said goodbye to his youth with the symbolic extinguishment of 30 candles.

Sam passed around pieces of the pinkest cake we could find, and opened his cards. This one, from Moe, reads "Happy Birthday Gappy!"

I'd like to say that everyone enjoyed their piece of pink cake...

But I'm really not sure that was the case...

Thankfully the birthday boy came up trumps with the Champers, which accompanies pink cake so nicely.

Especially when drunk from a beaker or mug, or in my case, the bottle.

Anyway, congratulations to Sam. Or should I say commiserations?