I took my birthday off work. I had some great ideas of places to go but, unfortunately, I also had a lot of Christmas shopping to do so in the end we spent the day roaming Oxford Street. To some this would be a great birthday. To me this was only a better option than hitting central London on the last couple of weekends before Christmas. I hate shopping.

So come January we decided to celebrate it being half way between our two birthdays. It’s a common event down our way.

Eventually we decided to go to Winchester as B had not been there previously and I have a friend who lives nearby. It was a cold but fine day so we spent some time darting around outside and longer periods inside, learning to appreciate log fires and fine beer.

We were not there long but we covered many of the more obvious sights. We started at the imposing Cathedral, wandered up the main street, past the Civic Centre and into a park which follows the river back to where we started. We follow variations of this route a couple of times, stopping off occasionally as I regain my bearings and the temperature varies.

As dusk approaches we meet a friend for a few drinks. At the end of the day, realising we missed dinner, we stop off at a kebab place on the way to the station. So much for fast food, we missed our train by about two minutes and ended up waiting on a cold platform for the best part of an hour. A poor end to an otherwise great day.