"But touch my tears with your lips
Touch my world with your fingertips
And we can have forever
And we can love forever
Forever is our today
...
Who lives forever anyway?"
Brian May

Big day today.  Another beautiful day dawns and Red Kites are prospecting  overhead as we enjoy breakfast in the shade in the garden, even at 9am it's starting to get hot.  A morning walk for a couple of hours with D & W around Stevenage outskirts - feels like the depths of the countryside as soon the vista is just fields and trees, no sign - or sound - of traffic and only the occasional walker hoves into view.  Good opportunity for a catch-up in the fresh air.  Highlight of the walk for me must be the brilliant view of a Green Woodpecker rising just ahead of us and tracking low across our field of vision so we get a clear view of its colours.  We have a talk about family history and relatives who fought and died in WWI, then the poppies appeared so I had to include them for today's blip.

Freshen up with a shower in time for short walk to lunch at el bar de tapas in Stevenage - excellent food and my favourite to enjoy food, a shared meal from 9 dishes - we each chose three and took whatever appealed to us. 

Another fast train back to Kings Cross and onwards to meet R at SJP, another bag drop to lighten my load before meeting K2 at Victoria, "the prodigal father cometh to London".  We make our way to the O2 for a meal there before the rush hour really kicks in, and there are plenty of options for food - and available seating - when we arrive.  That all changes over the next hour as thousands of people descend for the concert.  Yes, tonight I'm gonna have myself a real good time [he he] - it's Queen with Adam Lambert tonight!  Two hours solid of Queen, some of my favourite music from my late teens and twenties.  I vividly remember Bohemian Rhapsody belting out when I was a student at Aston in Birmingham, halcyon days...  But tonight, what a great show by the band and Adam.  The music has really lasted well in my mind, what a blast and a great birthday present, well an unbirthday present as my birthday was in April so I've been savouring this evening since then.  A really memorable unbirthday, one to remember and treasure. 

In relatively recent years I feel I've come to appreciate - maybe even understand to some degree - the poetry and timeless messages of songwriters from "my era", the sixties and seventies.  I feel so fortunate to have lived through what to me has been a golden age for popular music.

“My soul has painted like the wings of butterflies,
Fairy tales of yesterday will grow but never die,
I can fly, my friends...” 
Freddie Mercury