Birthday.

Today is my twentieth birthday. I know, I'm old.

So, I thought I should do a celebratory blog. Wahey! I am going to write down a memory from each year of my life thus far of my life, and here it goes.

1 - [insert memory here]

2 - [insert memory here]

3 - I remember, faintly, sitting down to dinner or lunch or whatever in the house at Pangbourne and my mum saying she was thirty-one years old. Evidently I must've been three at the time and one of the older siblings must've asked her how old she was. That's the whole memory. Apart from my mum's jam-jar glasses.

4 - Playdays. When I was four I was chosen from my nursery to go on a children's television programme. It was called Playdays, and was my favourite television programme at the time. The bit I remember clearly during filming was that me, a boy who was also chosen (called Joseph) and the presenter had to stomp across a really old bridge across a river, and it was filmed at a bread mill.

5 - Being really annoyed with my best friend, Bethany. She was technically a school year younger then me, but we moved from the nursery into the school at the same time. We sat at the same table, and one afternoon she was put in charge of the table's crayons and not me when I was older! That's not really fair is it?

6 - My headteacher, Miss Richardson, noticing my new haircut and saying it was really nice one day at school. I also had new shoes that day. But no one noticed them.

7 - On my seventh birthday I got my frist ever nose bleed. I remember before this day that I was jealous because my brother got nosebleeds all the time and I had never had one. The only thing was, the way I got it was that I tripped on my shoelaces and my face skidded along some rough tarmac. I had a large scab on my face for days. I've only had two nosebleeds since, but they were both in the last year when I've been knocked on the face in a ruck in rugby.

8 - Watching Titanic on video and being scared.

9 - New Years Eve 1999. My uncle Tim getting horrendously drunk and dancing with two pints of beer in his hands.

10 - Getting new kittens as a surprise from our to-be step-dad. There were so small and liked to hide down the back of the couch. If you sat down you had to be cautious because you'd get claws up your bum.

11 - My eleventh birthday I got two goldfish. One called Anty. The other Decky. I named them after two characters on a skit on SM:TV.

12 - Holding my baby sister for the first time in South Mimms Service Station on the M25. She was so tiny and sleeping. Now she's not so tiny and awake a lot of the time!

13 - Made another best friend for life, Abi. I think this was the year that I first went round her house. I was a bit shocked at first, because I didn't really think we were good enough friends for me to go round her house (because that's a big deal when you're thirteen) but I did anyway and it was awesome. Now, I'm so comfortable around her house, I walk in and make myself a cup of tea before even saying hello.

14 - My first proper-ish boyfriend, Alex. I think it lasted about three months. I have no idea what he's up to now. Oh well. The only problem was he got a lot hotter after I dumped him.

15 - My knee! My school was doing a production of The Tempest for a competition in a nearby town. It was after a summer of doing no exercise whatsoever. I was cast as one of the many Spirits. Unfortunatley, during a workshop in preparation, my knee dislocated and ever since it has been dodgy. I think I spent a month of crutches and a year and a half in physiotherapy. I decided not to have an operation - thank god, I would have never been able to play rugby. The ambulance on the day was funny. They gave me a lot of laughing gas because the paramedic had to pop the knee cap back out by straightening my leg and then told me 'Stop laughing! The Doctors won't take you seriously!' Also that I was determined not to go to the hospital alone, so I got my brother out of his lesson and he was driven behind me in the deputy head's car. Furthermore, this was the beginning of when I began to speak to Jenny more often. I remember talking on MSN explaining that I didn't know whether to have the operation or not etc etc and she was really good at weighing the options and talking things through. From then on I've always gone to her when life changing things happen, especially if I need to make a decision!

16 - Falling completely and utterly in love with a man called Fuad. He was an upper sixth and was taking an AS-level in Classics. He sat next to me and cor blimey, he was lovely. We worked together that whole year and I think I melted each time he said something. Unfortunatley my affections went unnoticed and he went off to university. Though, he did go to Cambridge University, so I saw him once or twice. Once he spoke to me and I again, melted, despite fancying someone else at the time. He never knew. Fuad, if you're reading this now, you missed your chance. Haha.

17 - For my seventeenth birthday all me and my friends went to see Spiderman 3 at the cinema across the road from our college. I loved the first two. I think they were really good. Maybe not as good as the Batman movies, but that's another story. But anyway, I remember vividly when Peter Parker went all emo with a fringe and everything and looking across at my friends. All of them couldn't contain their laughter.

18 - Leaving the country for the first time on my own. It was completely and utterly libarating. I believe that everyone should go travelling on their own. You find yourself maturing and completely responsible for your own actions. It was something that I had never done and an experience that I will never forget. I did things I never thought I would do. I learned to drive. Not just a car but a grader and a truck and a front end loader and a horse. I used a chainsaw. Got calf-deep in cow poop. I was hospitalised. I jumped off a platform fifty foot in the air with a piece of elastic strapped to my feet twice. I got drunk on a box of goon and fell asleep on the table in a hostel. I jumped out of a plane at fourteen thousand feet. I fell in love.

19 - Getting home from five months away. I'm telling you the best feeling in the world is that hug from your family. Especially your little sister. She made my life that day when I went to pick her up from school after not seeing her for so long. Seeing old friends again. Meeting new ones at university. Dropping out of university to go another way in life.

20 - Being completely and utterly happy.