Jon's 60th Birthday Adventures

Thanks for the well-wishes, the old fella had a brilliant 60th. So what did we do to celebrate his big day? We travelled to Ancient Egypt!

We caught the train to the NEC to visit Tutankhamum Birmingham: The Immersive Exhibition.

Birmingham's NEC at 10.30am, the calm before the storm! 

Walk Like An Egyptian (sorry about the earworm!)

The incredible hi-tech production features an 8-metre-high, 360-degree video mapping room, a seated VR experience and a free-roaming metaverse walk-through of the Valley of the Kings - alongside treasure rooms filled with artefacts, replicas, and curated Egyptian displays and everyone we encountered from young kids to groups of pensioners were totally captivated. 

The seated VR experience blew our minds as we awoke inside Tutankhamen's mummified body, stepped out of his sarcophagus and made our way out of his pyramid towards the Court of the Afterlife where the 42 divine judges (the Assessors of Maat), precided over by Osiris, weighed our divinity and granted us eternal life. 

It was thrilling to see Howard Carter's diaries and his original sketches. 

And the interactive photobooth was hilarious.

I seem to have turned into Harriet Walter!

After over two hours of fun and thrills we hopped on a train back to the city centre and had a spectacular Lebanese feast in the beautifully decorated Comptoir Libanais. 

We even had some special birthday baklava - on the house! 

After a morning in Egypt and lunch in Lebanon, we spent a couple of hours in the gorgeous traditional Victorian pub, The Shakespeare, on Lower Temple Street.

Our traveling continued once we got home. We headed to Ancient Greece to rewatch The Return. Much as we enjoyed Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, The Return feels more true to the spirit of Homer.

And a couple of days later, with Adrian & Liz's birthday present, some Lost Years rum & Jellyatrics sweets, we rewatched the wonderful O Brother Where Art Thou? The Coen Brothers Odyssey-inspired film set in the American Deep South in 1937. 

The Sixtieth celebrations continue....we're squeezing in another adventure leaving us with just 24 hours before we've got to be at Beautiful Days. 

All being well, I'll see you at the end of the month!