Cliffey's Card

"Yo CLIFFEY! Happy BIRTHDAY!"

Sorry to make three consecutive posts on the topic of Cliffey's 20th, but hey, that's what's been happening lately and besides, this should be the last one.

"Enjoy Everton!"

And the matter up for discussion this time is his present. This coming Saturday, myself and Tom will be escorting Cliffey up to Liverpool to watch Everton and Aston Villa duke it out for the title of Most Mid-Table Team in the Premiership. Cliffey was already aware of this plan - we had to make sure he kept the day free and didn't, say, go to Swansea - but as it was his birthday present we thought it would be nice to give him the tickets in a lovely birthday card with some sort of thoughtful message.

"I hope they lose 5-0."

So after work Tom collected first me from the Atrium then Sarah from Coleg Glan Hafren and the three of us proceeded to Tom's house so that he could change out of his work clothes. While he got on with that, Sarah and I played with his dog, Molly (who has grown substantially since last I saw her). She seemed wary of us at first - perhaps dogs hate green hoodies? - but soon we earned her trust and she shook our hands and let us stroke her and tried to hump me in spite of having recently been spayed.

"But they won't, 'cos we're there!"

After...that, we went to Tesco to a) get the card, and b) buy something for tea. We entertained the idea of buying him a "Happy Birthday, Grandad!" card just to make him feel really old, or perhaps an "It's A Baby Boy!" card just for the Dada value (no pun intended). But eventually we played it simple and got him a nice blue "Happy Birthday, Brother!" card, big enough to write loads of lovey-dovey crap in.

"Because that really worked for Hereford."

We got chicken and potato waffles for tea.

"DON'T RUIN THIS JOEL IT'S CLIFFEY'S BIRTHDAY!"

On returning home, we handed Cliffey the card, with which he was overjoyed, although I have a sneaking suspicion he might not have liked it as much had it not contained three tickets to an Everton match. Later on, Tom came back to the house, as did JR and "Dave from work", and they played FIFA long into the night. But I've learned not to take such risks. Sarah and I went to bed and watched Despicable Me, lest I should once again be beaten 5-0 and have to apologise on Facebook.

"Fuck you Tom."

Joel.