Ouch!!

I get hangovers akin to the Black Death in severity, at least!! They leave me with a shaky icky feeling for days afterwards. It doesn't actually matter how many beers I have, I'll still feel yuck the next day, even after one or two. Ah well, in for a penny in for a pound says I, quickly knocking back as many I can muster, which was probably only about 6, but I'm not so good at mustering beer!!

It was the Concrete Box birthday weekend!! Myself and Monkey Boy (my 2 year old son, who will from now on be known as Monkey Boy, because of his uncanny resemblance to a tiny primate!!) have birthdays a week apart so it seemed apt to combine them into a sort of two-fer. 

Accurate representation

A mountain of sandwiches and a lot of house polishing later and a party was born. Best friend (a) or Delia for short, provided an array of baked goodies, some of which I have squirrelled away for laters!! Best friend (b), in no particular order, or Snappy for short (I'll most likely change these later) took photos of it all, which I managed to avoid being in, for the most part.

I always find the mix entertaining, my family and Hubby's family are so very different. The kiddies all busied themselves with spinning round, roaring and other such activities. The adults (Now when I say adults I mean the proper grown-ups, not me like!!) after some obligatory gossiping, settled on Strictly come dancing. Mum and parents-in-law (I don't normally refer to them as The Outlaws, I swear!!) having natters about all the celebrities, Dad paying it all no attention what-so-ever, and 'Holy Aunt' looking on and tutting periodically at the skimpy outfits.

Of course eventually the groups at each extreme of the age range went off for their evening naps leaving us 'Young people' to gradually reduce a mountain of beer into a mountain of recycling.

While it still feels like hurricane George may well be hiding in my stomach, I truly believe nights like that are worth every bit of a hangover. I am honestly blessed to have such a fantastic, if slightly clinically insane, bunch in my family. To top it all off to have somehow, in my lifetime, gathered the most incredible, if slightly clinically insane, people to have as my very own dear friends is just luck of lotto win proportions. We initiated a new member into the group this weekend, I hope we didn't scare the crap out of him too much!! 

(Photo was yoinked from http://media.knoxnews.com/media/img/photos/2009/07/18/071909george4_t607.jpg)

Being 20-ahem, cough hack....

I turned 30 last year. I know, I know, it's hard to believe I'm a day over 21 with my dashing youthful looks (can girls be dashing?, Must look into that!) Birthdays aren't exactly new, I've had 30 of them, but this last one felt different. I've had different feeling birthdays before too, but not many, 12 and 21 I'd say, possibly 18 but I think I was too drunk to remember!! At 12 I felt a bit scared, thinking about the prospect of growing up, and excited, thinking about the prospect of growing up, big conflicted brain on me even then!! My experience of 21 was a little different from my friends' as I had a 2 year old girl and was out on my own in the big bad world. More on that in future blogs I have no doubt.

30 loomed ahead last year and I dreaded it. I thought about all sorts of things. Being a grown-up, even if I have been playing at that for the last 11 years. Maybe having to finally figure out what direction my life is going, or even where I'd like it to go. Time passing me by far too fast. The eventual reality of my parents getting old (I'm stupidly close to my parents, but I need them, I don't do independence well!!)

As the last week of 29 ticked along I had a long chat with my very close friend. She had done the turning 30 bit earlier in the year. It's really nice, she told me, it feels just right or something, comfortable, like. She was right you know, she's rarely wrong. She gave me a little box of tricks for my birthday, all sorts of goodies lay within. My favourite thing though, I think, was this in teeny book form.

I realised I'm quite happy with who I am. I have no idea who I will be, and that's ok too. We're all on a journey I suppose, in our own personal way, and birthdays are just signposts along the road, reminding us to quit belly-aching and be happy with our lot. I turned 31 today, quietly in a way, and I don't know what it's like at all.....yet!!