Best Birthday June 16, 2008

 

Last Thursday I turned 25. Surely not a noteable birthday you’d think, as one of my presents stated, it lacks the youthful exuberance of 21, or the gravitas of 60… but for me it was a big celebration, and I was determined to push celebration to the extreme.

The celebrations started the weekend before last, with the balloon creatures and cake I already mentioned.

We continued on Tuesday, with a lovely birthday meal with my friends from church here in Wandsworth. They made me a huge summer snow scene cake, with strawberries and cream in the middle and a snowman on top. It was fantastic.

Thursday was my actual birthday, and it was a lovely day. It started with a birthday coffee, continued with a birthday lunch with some of my colleagues, then I went back to Wandsworth and got some lovely presents from my friends here (including the most lovely ever purse!). That evening I went along to our monthly poetry evening where we had birthday poems and cream cakes.

The celebrations continued with fervency on Friday, as the ‘Unparis’ weekend began. To explain, we had orginally mused about going to Paris for the weekend, but for a number of reasons we decided to abandon that, so my two good friends organised a weekend of celebration on English soil. I knew where and when to turn up and what to bring, but not our itinery or destinations. The surprises were lovely and fitting.

We began on Friday night in Wagamama’s. I was handed a parcel and an envelope marked, ‘or alternatively’. When I opened the parcel it was the book Lord of The Rings. I knew then that we were going to the theatre to see it. And it truly was an awesome production. What made my night was that three of my other Canterbury friends were there too… that was a lovely bit of the surprise. I’d been intrigued by the present one of my friend’s was carrying, as it was huge!! It turned out to be a framed newspaper front page with an article about me in it… cool!!

On Saturday morning I was instructed to arrive at Kings Cross at 10.10am. So I did! I was then handed an envelope, which contained three tickets to York. I was very excited about that, as York is somewhere I’ve always wanted to go. We jumped on the train, and my lovely friends had brought pastries to fit in with the Parisian theme. They also brought me a coffee table book on Parisian markets, which I duly entertained the train with excerpts from. I had to don a huge birthday badge which flashed… very subtle! (not!)

A bit further on in the journey I was handed another present. This was a printed sheet with the information about our hotel on. And a guide book all about York. It was cool to read all about where we were going and do a bit of plotting and planning.

When we arrived in York we found the hotel in the only rain shower of the weekend. It was a lovely hotel, with a huge triple bedroom. Very plush. We then walked into York, had some lunch, went on a Viking experience thing (complete with time travel, the opportunity to don a viking helmet, and coin pressing!). After a coffee we wandered round some more, buying some lovely fudge and taking in the Minster, which was beautiful. After this we walked along the river front, then went and had a carvary with a traditional yorkshire pudding.

On Sunday we got another train, this time I really did have no idea where we were going! About half way I realised we were going to Leeds! While there we met up with some good friends who live in a place called East End Park, and spent the afternoon with them, which was lovely.

It feels a bit weird that all the celebrating is over, but I am really aware that a birthday is just a summary of all that is to come in the coming year, and therefore there is a lot to look forward to and be thankful for. I’m so grateful for my friends who organised such a perfect weekend, who knew exactly what I would like, and also to everyone who helped make this birthday my favourite of the last 25!!