Friday 18th November 2011.
I turned 23 on this day, and it wasn’t particularly an age I was greeting with open arms. What the hell is supposed to happen when you’re 23? But, I guess if it’s anything like being 22, 21, 20, 19 or 18 I’m in for a pretty good ride.
Birthday celebrations actually started on Tuesday, which was essentially my last day at work as obviously, I’ve booked holiday off over my birthday period. I turned up to work for my 10-7 shift a couple of minutes early and it turns out I ruined my colleague’s master plan to concoct a birthday surprise. I was greeted by balloons, banners, and a frustrated Natalie trying to light candles on a birthday cake whilst screaming ‘GO AWAY WE’RE NOT READY FOR YOU YET!’ I did as I was told until I was instructed to re-enter the office, which I did to the chorus of ‘Happy birthday’. It was all a lovely surprise, and they all bought me a very lovely and generous bunch of presents.
On Thursday I received my birthday present off Aimée, which was a ticket to see Chase & Status at the o2 Academy in Birmz. So off we went, I had a few Baileys’ to get the ball rolling and I was ready to dance the night away. And I did! It was pretty awesome, sounded great and we made a couple of friends in the crowd too! It was the sweatiest gig EVER, I felt bloody vile afterwards. But it was an awesome pressie, so thanks Aimz!
Annoyingly I had a crap nights sleep and was wide awake at 8am on birthday morn. I was greeted with a nice little pile of pressies which included a generous amount of Benefit make-up, Ugg boots and a very nice Vivvy Westwood necklace and notebook! Never been so spoilt, so thanks Ma and Pa!
Me and Aimée headed to Birmingham AGAIN yesterday afternoon to kick start birthday proceedings. The German market had opened a day previous so it’d be really rather rude not to head there and soak up some festive atmosphere. I ended up getting on the outside of a pretty delish Frankfurter and chocolate coated marshmallow skewer! It was a rare treat, as dieting is still very much underway. After a chill at The Sun on the Hill (ha!) we headed to one of my most favourite places in the world ever - The Electric Cinema, to see…ahem…Twilight. We booked a sofa, I had cocktails and Aimz made full use of the ‘text the waiter’ bar service! Twilight was bloody stupid though, but I still enjoyed it all the same. After out visit to Forks, it was time to join the masses of Friday rush hour people to head back to Nunners in time for the evenings proceedings, which was curry for me and 15 friends.
Adam, Laura, Kay and Aiméé headed to my house first for a drink then we headed down to the Agra, and it was a really fabbo night. I was joined there by Ben, Katie, Stu, Danielle, James, Elliot, SSJ, Luke, Sam, Lou and Adam’s girlfriend. Needless to say, things got rowdy, Elliot started playing the salt shaker, the two Sam’s started playing with the cutlery and James and Danielle were force feeding each other birthday cake, But hey, wouldn’t have had it any other way!. Ben, being the darling he is, bought me a birthday cake which we all got involved with, Danielle gave me moolah and Lou bought me a nice new purse. James bought me a gift voucher for a sofa at The Electric which is just pretty fabulous! It was a reet good laugh, but the curry has killed most of us by half 11! I was fully ready for bed by midnight, but I FORCED myself to go to Fever. The remaining few headed there, that being me, James, Lou, Ben, Danielle. And yeah. Ended up being there till 3! Talk about a second wind. Had a pretty fabbo time in there, highlights including Nero being played twice. I think boutique had never quite seen dance moves like it.
I’m pretty tired today, but me and Kay are off out…and guess where I’m going? Birmingham AGAIN! I NEED to live over there. We’re seeing Smashing Pumpkins and I’m pretty excited, been a while since I’ve seen any form of live rock music as I’ve been going through a bit more of a ‘popular’ phase so it’s nice to be revisiting my old school loves.
I get the feeling that being 23 ain’t gonna be so bad after all :-)
