Happy Birthday to ME!!!

 At last the sun has come out. It's so wonderful - I feel as if my body can unfurl at long last. What a very long winter we have had. I very much hope the weather continues.

It was my birthday on Saturday. Birthdays are certainly not the same as you get older and certainly not the same as they were before COVID. This year was much better than last, last year we were in full lockdown - husband worked (there was no point him taking a day off we couldn't do anything), son was home schooling and I sat in the sun in the garden with a mojito (or 2) doing crochet and listening to the radio!!!

To be fair it's not difficult to top that.

I am useless at remembering birthdays. I'm ok with my immediate family because those are dates I've had to remember since year dot. But newphews, sister-in-law and friends are a mystery to me. Therefore I was somewhat horrified to receive cards from friends who had remembered. Just a couple, but even so it made me wonder if I'd missed their birthdays - probably. I just have to accept remembering birthdays isn't my thing. I was impressed with them though.

As with tradition - present from brother didn't arrive - it's usually a week late. My parents have given me some money, which I'll hold onto until I know what I want. There will be something. Husband bought me some chains for the necklaces he bought me a couple of years ago and which because I'm so accident prone I'm constantly breaking the chains. They're snake chains so not easy to fix. If there's anybody out there that wants a lot of broken snake chains, let me know - I can help.

That was it as far as presents - oh I lie, somebody from my old team bought some retro sweets (nice present) and I got a face pack from my pre-COVID boss (which was very kind).

Gone are the days when you'd sit there with a huge pile of goodies to open and flutters of excitement in your stomach. Now it's just the feeling of pressure to try to make the day something better than normal and the disappointment you're another year older. Though I'm now officially on the better side of the age ranges you get. I always hate it when you tick to the next one. There's something very depressing when you move from the 18-24 age range and suddenly you're in 25-32 age range. I'm not going to say which age range I'm in, but needless to say I'm very flattered to be lumped in with the lower end of my current age range!

What you can do is limited at the moment (like I need to tell YOU). So it was a bit like a groundhog day of my husbands birthday, but still very pleasant. We booked into the Ginger Fox for lunch. Had a lovely meal, salt cod scotch egg (quail egg) to start and guini fowl for main followed by cheese board. With a lovely glass of prosecco and pomegranate to wash it down.

Was quite funny half way through as suddenly a stag do turned up. There's a paintball place just down the road. Obviously a hotel in Brighton has been doing COVID stag do's and didn't realise that the Ginger Fox was all about dining, not your usual 'boozer'. The manager at the Fox looked after them and in the 25 minutes they stayed they necked a pint and shared a cheeseboard. I don't think it was what they were expecting either - but to be fair to them they all kept their stagging very quiet and to themselves. Only issue was the stag himself who was dressed as a nurse and fully made up (made me smile). 

Manager suggested they mentioned to the hotel that the Fox was not really the best spot to send their stag do's to! As there's nothing else around I'd personally suggest the manager at the hotel gave them a call to warn them a group was coming. Though I suspect the group were not expecting to see the prices anyway!

After the yummy lunch I now had the unusual power that I had 2 'boys' with me that had to do what I wanted to do. Doesn't happen often - I'm surrounded by far too much testosterone frankly. 

One of my favourite walks is around the sea wall at the marina. When husband and I were dating we used to do it all the time, usually at night and after we'd been to the cinema. I love the walk because you're usually the only people there and you get to see Brighton from a different angle. Without crowds, smell, drug addicts and rubbish.

They've been sorting out the sea defences on the marina (I assume) and as a result it's been closed for about 3 years. I really missed it last year because it would have been a nice walk, when walking was all we could do. Anyway, it's suddenly opened up again. The sun was shining and it was the perfect place to go. So that's what we did. It's also the 'scene' of the photo with this post.

Believe it or not it's the first time son has done this walk with us - which is absolutely crazy because we live just a couple of miles from it. But just as he got to the age when he could manage the walk they closed it. I'm pleased to say he really enjoyed the walk, so hopefully it's something we can do a lot more now.

After that I went clothes shopping, leaving to sulky men sitting outside waiting for me. Though I suspect they preferred that to coming in. Whenever I go into a clothes shop husband says 'I'll wait outside'. When son got to 5 he started to say the same and then would get most put out when I'd say to him 'no you'll come in with me, I'm not leaving you alone outside!'.

So that was the excitement from the day, we then went home and I drank champagne, whilst forcing the testosterone to watch girlie films with me (films for girls I hasten to add, not the other type of girlie film!!!!!).

Sunday was a bit of a washout as there's nothing worse than a champagne hangover. So I curled up under a blanket and didn't move from the sofa for the day. I did manage to get dressed though - I was quite proud of that.

Let's hope that by the time we get to birthdays next year we're out of all of this COVID chaos. I'll tell you something - if we are I am going BIG next year. Hopefully a nice weekend break in a European city - though we don't know yet what foreign travel is going to look like. I have a friend who is a pilot and they have always said that being a pilot short haul is basically no different from being a coach driver. I wonder if this type of travel will exist in the same way.

We were supposed to be going to Berlin for the Christmas markets at the end of November 2020. I'd booked the hotels and was waiting to buy flights when COVID hit. I remember wondering what the price of the flights would be and was expecting them to be around £50-£100 per person. Now they don't seem to fly to Tegal from Gatwick any more, you have to go to Heathrow. 

Suddenly a short hop to a Eurpean City is sounding like more of a challenge than it ws before. Doubtless things will eventually go back to normal, but I'm not getting younger and I want to do things with son before he suddenly decides to leave home and we don't hear from him for about 5 years.

Also there's the rise of the new varient from India. The Government are saying 'go out and spend money, but don't go out and spend money'......... AGAIN! We've booked our favourite place in Devon again in the summer. I am on the edge of my seating waiting to go in case they say we can't travel.

Also hoping we can eat out more this year, it was a pain in the backside having to do the catering last year. Also now we've all given up carbs it makes holiday cooking more of a challenge.

On the subject of no carbs, all I've done in May is break my no carbs rule and with husbands birthday and mine the drinking has been a bit reckless as well. Today is the first day of good behaviour - let's see if that lasts for more than one day.... watch this space.