I went out for a birthday meal with 12 of my friends on Saturday night. We went to a local Cantonese restaurant called Moutai. We've been before, and the service hasn't been amazing, but I've always liked the food, so we gave them a second chance. When we arrived and got seated it took about 30 minutes for them to take our drinks orders, but the food came quite quickly. I think they've finally put me off going there, they've had too many second chances and whilst the food was nice, it wasn't as good as Jim's veggie cafe. We should have gone there but the carnivores would have pulled their faces.
I made some marguerita cocktails for people to have before we set off for the restaurant. They were really strong, so I'm not sure what people made of them. I thought they tasted great. I've discovered I quite like the taste of neat triple sec, it's just like orange vodka.
My friend Andrea baked me a beautiful and huge 3 tier red velvet cake from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. It tasted delicious, and was bright red inside. The frosting was made using Philadelphia cheese and tasted ace. Mmmmm. The photo I took with my phone isn't very good, and doesn't do the cake justice (especially re the cake's red colour).
I got some cool birthday presents from my friends. My friend Caroline made me a little toy cat - quite a feat to say she'd managed to make it whilst in the midst of moving house.
Nina got me an owl cushion which I'd been coveting for a while.
Leah got me a tiny doll version of my alter ego 'Onyx' (Gemma + too much alcohol = Onyx). I think the doll is going to be a magic imp version of me - Leah said I can call upon the doll for help when I need it.
Emma got me an owl bag and a gardening book, as well as making me a crocheted doll with a flower.
Our friends Stef and Jo came round with their baby Ember and a bottle of wine and some chocolate for me.
Our friend Mullen brought me a graffiti painting he'd done on canvas, and this is pictured with a cool pink robot alarm clock off my friends Joe and Paul.
After the meal everyone came back for a brew, before heading off home. Back in the day we'd have been drinking til late - another sign we're all getting on a bit now.
On Sunday I had a chill, and did very little, watched a black and white war film called Darby's Rangers and then fell asleep. I'm kind of glad the whole birthday fuss is over for another year! I don't like being the centre of attention.
The leaves still haven't turned completely orange yet, but it won't be long before they do. There's already small piles of leaves gathering at the sides of the road. I'm hoping me and Chris can go for a nice autumn walk together then come home and have a hot bowl of soup.
Well, I feel like I need to eat healthier and do more exercise. I'm feeling a bit lazy at the minute and I think energy creates energy - I need to get my energy back. I think I've burned myself out at the allotment. Perhaps I started too early in the season.
Down at the allotment I need to pull out and compost/burn the old plants and have a general tidy round, that's next weekend's job. I also need to plant the over wintering onions and garlic and the spring bulbs in my Dad's memorial garden (my Aunty Amy sent me some crocuses and snowdrops to plant there). It's all been birthday stuff for the past week or so, so it'll be nice to get back to doing normal things. I've got someone's birthday coming up in two weeks, and then Halloween two weeks after that - if I commit! The thing is, all my mates love dressing up, and they spend lots of time and money on their outfits. I, on the other hand, being the boring introvert that I am, don't 'get' dressing up, and I find the whole Halloween affair pretty stressful. I find it hard to come up with an outfit, and don't enjoy putting the outfit together, I just get really stressed with it and I never look that good in the end. One year I spent lots of time and money on a outfit, only to end up looking like a Ribena berry. But I went out last year and had a laugh, so I don't know whether to bother or not this year. Maybe I should just save my cash, and stay home with my carved allotment pumpkins, eat pumpkin soup, treacle toffee and parkin cake. Yeah, maybe that sounds a good idea, unless one of my mates organises a Halloween house party. Sod going out to pubs though. It costs a fortune and you wake up with a hangover. See, I really am getting old!
Finally, I helped tidy up the photo of the interior shop sign, which we made from bits of non-recyclable rubbish. It took a while to cut around all the edges in Photoshop and make it look pretty!
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