My birthday passed without quite the level of dark news and comment that I've come to expect since my 30th on 9/11. I'm not sure if the various items of doom and gloom about the financial markets made the old news of the Al-Qaida attack on US fade away, but it was a welcome change.

We had a great day; Jill & I both took the day off, and Nathan went into nursery for the day so we had some time to ourselves. We spent the afternoon in the Royal Armouries in Leeds, partly on a scouting visit for the IMechE Regional Dinner, and partly as something different to do. I wanted to see the 'Weapons from the Movies' show, which had a lot of weapons and armour created by WETA for films such as The Lord of the Rings, The Last Samurai, and the Narnia films. It was very impressive, especially as entry was free. It was great spending time with Jill as a couple rather than having the parents bit dominating, albeit I was a little distracted by the gadget she had got me for my birthday with my mum and dad, a Palm Centro phone. However, Jill does tend to say that the odd gadget keeps me quiet!

We picked up Nathan, and had a chilled evening. A very mellow birthday, but lovely.

UPDATE: I now have a challenge - someone who knows I like gadgets has bought me a missile firing USB connected launcher for the computer, but the package and contents have no clue who it is from. So if you bought it for me, thank you very much, but let me know!