The Hub Is Chuffed

I may have mentioned one or two thousand times that the Hub is a plane geek.  His idea of fun is to sit in a draughty field next door to an airport, with a flask and a camera.

I may also have mentioned that we don’t often have much money to spare.  His favourite Christmas stocking filler from me is always the latest issue of Airliner World [strapline: The Global Airline Scene, which has me in stitches], as he can’t usually afford to buy it.

You may remember we went to France for £9 with Ryanair – incidentally, a much-maligned airline which is actually really good value for money and the most punctual in Europe.  The Hub had great fun taking pictures on the way to the airport, in the airport, outside the plane, inside the plane and of the plane, inside and out. 

He treated himself to the November issue of Airliner World for the flight, which cost more than half the price of the plane ticket, and entered a photographic competition it was running that month.

I’d like to say he won, but he didn’t.  Never mind.  However, he likes the magazine so much that when he came across back issues going for 99p on eBay, he bought two – April and May’s of this year.

They arrived today and he got as far as the second page, when he suddenly looked puzzled – did that head scrolling up and down the page thing that says I’m looking and I don’t understand what’s going on here – then suddenly jumped up in glee.  The Hub hasn’t jumped in glee since I told him the best news he could ever have – he’s allowed to keep his seven thousand airline pin collection and me – so it was my turn to look puzzled.

His competition entry photo had been used on the second page, as the background to the editor’s article!  He didn’t know they were going to use it because they didn’t tell him, but entry to the competition implied consent.  It was cropped, but not to its detriment, and he was credited.

Here’s the picture:

He’s chuffed, and so am I.  I didn’t have a thing to write about today.

10.10.10

Today is the Hub’s birthday.  What a shame he isn’t ten, thirty or a hundred; I like number neatness. 

 

Spud and I woke him with presents.  He always manages to guess what we’ve bought but we fooled him this year by not getting him anything.

When we were very young

 

Just kidding; I’ve been saving for months and I had £3.71 to splurge with (remember my Christmas savings jar from last year?).  Apart from a box set of Goodnight Sweetheart, I got him packets and packets of Buttons and Haribo; some Christmas card tags; and a magazine.  This is where the fooling came in: he loves Airliner World and can’t afford it so he had asked for a copy.  I bought Airways and gave him that instead.  He smiled resignedly, knowing that I never get these things right – if he says ‘no’ to coffee, he gets one anyway; if he asks for Galaxy, he gets Buttons; if he gets a dvd box set of Goodnight Sweetheart, he already has four of the six dvds in the set sitting on his shelf.   

He said it was okay, he was quite happy to read that one.  He is a geek, after all; it’s what they do.  Spud then gave him a large flat packet that confounded all the Hub’s present guessing instincts – don’t worry; don’t lose the faith; it was just a blip: how many people, no matter how irritatingly excellent to the point of spoiling everyone else’s fun at guessing they are, given pound shop sky lanterns on their birthday, would instantly guess what it was they’d just been given?  Especially if it was a decoy gift: inside was the latest copy of Airliner Nerds of the World Unite magazine, just as he’d requested, plus a war movie to get him in the party mood.

We got him gooooood.  Of such small triumphs is happiness made.

The Birthday Boy gets to choose dinner on his birthday – sort of a last meal in reverse, though sticking to the spirit of the-condemned-man-celebrates-with-food-that-turns-into-ashes-in-his-mouth, given who’s doing the cooking.  The Hub always chooses sandwiches, falling as they do into ‘least likely to be burned’ category. 

That was today’s plan until Tory Boy phoned to say he wasn’t coming home Friday and going back today but just coming for the afternoon because he had been offered extra working hours.  Any activity that doesn’t require me to fund it is to be encouraged, so I asked him what meal he would like for his too-short visit: Lost Child trumps Old Man every time, I’m afraid.  He chose a roast and, to add insult to injury, the Hub was going to have to get up from his birthday couch to go buy all the ingredients for his usurped meal as my fridge is still by the front door due to the ongoing kitchen refurb.  However, Tory Boy saved the birthday because he phoned this morning to say he was free on Wednesday so he would come through on Tuesday night instead of today: he gets his roast; we get to see more of him; and the Hub gets his birthday sandwiches.  Once he’s been to the shop and bought the ingredients, that is.