A long time in the planning, finally the date had arrived for 20 or 30 of us to pile on planes and check into hotels in Barcelona to help Mark, Carl and Simon celebrate their joint 91st birthday.

This is part one of the story... for a few of us that meant getting on to a BA flight that turned out to be an XL flight (not quite sure why), photographing Steve holding his copy of the in-flight magazine 'Altitude', and checking into our various hotels before heading out to find the others at one of Barcelona's many bars.

There are obviously gaps to be filled in here - something we hope to achieve as/when Mark gets his pics over to me.