Shopping!

So, as you might be able to tell, I had rather an excellent birthday yesterday! Today I took the day off and had a lovely lie-in, followed by finishing my birthday cake in bed while reading Cosmo. How decadent can one get on a Tuesday morning?! Following that I toddled off to Birmingham to buy lots of new clothes with my gift card from mum and dad, and I'm pleased to report that my mission was successful. I've bought a red polo neck which will go perfectly with my suit for the colder winter open days that are coming up, a pair of charcoal grey trousers with a very slight pinstripe and funky buttons at the top and turn-ups, a gorgeous grey skirt which I can wear to work or to parties/evenings out, and a black wool coat which will be my staple coat for the next two years. I did go slightly over the amount on the card, but all that means is that I effectively bought a £70 coat for £40 which was my coat budget for the year anyway. A most productive day's work.

Now I'm curled up at home in my long snuggly jumper, listening to Elgar. I'm about to finish off this week's Heat magazine and read some more of my book. It's raining outside and I'm warm and cosy, and I don't have to go out into the rain later because I'm not at work! This birthday weekend just has no bad points to it at all. Happy Sarah.

And lo, it has come to pass

That I am 24. 24 has always been a bit of a seminal age in my book. And thus I will elaborate after I have stopped trying to make my fingers work properly. All very draxy.

So today is the glorious day of my birth. I went to work and was given mnay presnets - a bag, a necklance, earrings, hair straightening stuff and some wine. I have had many fav presents generally. Thusly I shall write.a list.

3 bottles of wine
1 bottle of plum wine
1 bracelet
1 necklace
2 pairs of earrings
2 bags
1 lots of very nice Next bouchers to spend tomorrow
1 set of whale-shpaed candles (lit with my clow torch)
1 set of little Juicy Lucy cards
1 ottle of mint baileys (juicy and stu are legendfs)
1 set of lush stuff
muchos cheques
hair stuff
box of chocs
and stuff still to come! fabulous

So I am a very lucky girl. Tonight I went out with Juicy, Stu and Andy for a Thora hardcord pizza evening at Pizza Expres. muchos wine and yum yum. Spoke to Alicia for about a minute and she managed to call me an old slag. Nice.

I always thought I'd get married aged 24. Am very glad I'm not. However this the age I'm supposed to meet someone so I can get married when I'm 27. Error. Nice men come forth right now! General summoning with fire and stuff. But seriously, 24 is a very major age to be. Scary. But generally good I think, and hopefully better than 23 which has been a bit mediocre and very devoid of stuff. By stuff think Helen and Paul and you'll get what I'm on about.

Ooh Greenday.

Thankyou to the fabulous friends for being so fab, espeically Juicy who is awesome! Yay.

PS I shall probably regret this tomorrow but I'll be shopping so I won't care

Family day

Today mum and dad picked me up and we went down to Amersham to do our duty with the old people. It was my great aunty Dodo's 95th birthday, and she had a tea party with sandwiches and cakes from a caterer, champagne, fruit juice and birthday cake. We took Grannie out for lunch along with my uncle Andrew and aunt Sue, and I had a really lovely chicken dish in a very nice pub just up the road from the house. Mum, dad and I then had a bit of a walk in the afternoon to escape, before several more old people descended and the food was eaten. My cousins and I did serving duty which excused us from conversing too much and it was actually a very nice do. I saw five of my cousins and lots of uncles and aunts which was lovely, and the definite highlight was meeting my cousin's baby for the first time - amazingly cute! My mum went all gooey and declared that she wanted one. Now I'm pretty sure she isn't intending to have another one of her own so I guess she's implying that it's up to me...the comment "don't leave it too late dear" also kind of suggested this! I told her that she'd just have to wait. Anyway, it was great to see mum and dad and to get more presents - I'll actually have something to open tomorrow now! I also took delivery of the strawberry gateau which I have as my birthday cake every year, and which will make me the most popular person in the office tomorrow. My colleagues have been looking forward to this ever since last year's cake! Mum really is a legend.

Spotted in Cosmo...

"18 is the number of men it's acceptable for you to have slept with by your mid-twenties" apparently, if you want a bloke to think you're a nice girl. Erm, firstly, who are these women, and secondly, where are they finding the men?!

Playing my oboe again

Yesterday I had a rather exciting email from the first oboe at the BPO, who I played with for a term last year. They've since asked me to play in several other concerts but I've always been away for either the performance or the rehearsals. However, this time they're doing a one-day workshop at the end of October and I'm actually free to take part! This is great for me as I haven't played properly for ages and the BPO are such a good orchestra. It's really nice that she's remembered me and that she still thinks I'm good enough to play. I'm only going to be 4th oboe which is fine with me (hopefully nothing too scary there) and we're doing the Martinu 4th symphony. Better get practising...

Ever so slightly worrying

So I just looked at Kel's pics of last Saturday, and there are many of them that I really don't remember posing for. The ones of Juicy trying to eat my breast and of me with Stu in Revolution are a complete blank, as are all the ones in the club including me waving my arms about in the air! I look like a total plonker but at least I seem to be having a good time which is certainly something I do remember.

Excellent pics of the Safari Park, the House of Hogg BBQ and Baby B though! And in most of them my hair is quite fantastically straight. Hurrah.

Last week

Firstly, I thought that if I tried to write a proper write-up of Thora it would go on forever, so I'm going to do it through the handy medium of keywords.

Beef dripping. Double cream. 12 packs of butter. Comedy vicar. Bracken. Flamingoland. More food. Harrogate. The world's most beautiful pink handbag. Impossible sports questions. Champagne-wank-Reims-"Is it sugar production?". York. Betty's tea room. Cocktails. Wine. Baileys and creme anglaise (recommended). The Game of Life. Absinthe. More pudding. World's longest journey home - Fellbeck to Leamington in only 7 hours. Relaxation, happiness, battery re-charging and lots of laughing. Fabulous.

And then when I came home it wasn't to normal life quite yet but to our birthday party! I spent most of the morning stressing slightly and running about trying to get everything done, but then I had a lovely relaxing two hours in the hairdressers having red bits put in my hair. I'm really pleased with it as it's not too in-your-face but it's different enough for people to notice. I then pumped up the airbed and went to get Jess from the station, and we sat and chatted and ate dinner and drank hardcore Rose. Lesley came for dinner as well, and we were all sitting having a nice conversation in the kitchen when she suddenly realised it was 6.30 and we had to leave for the bus in 10 minutes. Major error (I seem to be saying that a lot recently in relation to my timekeeping!). We ran about hysterically putting on jewellery and clothes and resolving to do our makeup on the bus, when Lesley remembered that she had her car outside and we could just drive to Coventry. Panic over. The second panic then ensued when my new dress which fitted two weeks ago when I bought it now no longer fastened up in any way. I blame the beef dripping. My wedding outfit didn't fit either which was also highly depressing, so I ended up wearing a top and skirt and being mighty annoyed with myself.

However, after this I cheered up when we got to Juicy's house and I had a good strong vodka and orange. Everyone was there and it was so lovely to see people I hadn't seen for ages - and Juicy had very gorgeous hair! And then the limos arrived. I want my own limo. Seriously fantastic. Sparkly lights in the roof, very sweet bubbly on ice (sparkling perry - quality!) and cheesy CDs. Speeding along with glasses in hand all singing along to Don't Stop Me Now was definitely one of the best party experiences I've ever had.

When we arrived on Broad Street we went straight to Revolution where I had 12 shots of yummy vodka and a chocolate cocktail. Absolutely brilliant. Then we managed to get all 16 of us out and into the club just before the end of the free entry time, where I spent the next 3 hours dancing to cheese (only occasionally falling into the wall) and generally floating on that alcohol high you get just before it all goes wrong, but without it actually going wrong. They played Amarillo (conga!) and Living on a Prayer and it was all fab. At 2pm we left and I stole some of Lu's chips (very delicious they were too) and we managed to get all of us home again which I was very impressed by. Falling into your own private limo is so much better than trying to flag down a taxi. When we got in, Jess, Lesley and I had toast and finished the pasta, and got to bed at about 4ish. I woke up at 11.15 this morning minus any form of hangover. Result. Best night out I've had for a very long time and quite a brilliant way to celebrate (almost) hitting the 24 milestone. Thankyou to everyone who came and made it so much fun!

I appear to be slightly drunk

So tonight three of us went for after-work drinks because no-one else would and we are hardcore. Charlotte, Mike and I went to Dogma and I had 3 cocktails and 2 gin and tonics. Then I went home by miraculously managing to ctach 2 buses and now my dinner is in the oven. Coktails are well yummy. I am a liittle bit durnky and I keep running across the room to do cooking type things in a slightly boundy fashion. Hurrah for work people and Dogm.a. Going on holiday tomorrow. Yes.

A somewhat erroneous morning

Last night I decided to set my alarm slightly early, so that I had a bit more time this morning and could get some stuff done before I went to work. Unfortunately, while I changed the minutes correctly, I appear to have left the hour unchanged. This morning I woke up from a lovely sleep that seemed strangely longer than usual, to discover that it was 6.50 instead of 5.50. Major major error. However, following a bout of quite impressive swearing, I managed to pull off a fairly brilliant display of speed getting up. With my brain going through my usual routine and omitting the non-essential bits, I got up, showered, dressed, straightened the thing on my head that passes for my hair when I wake up and don't wash it, packed my bag, ate a bowl of cereal and left the house bang on time at 7.12. Not bad for 22 minutes! And the bus even turned up on time.

Of course, the entire population of Warwickshire and the West Midlands then turned out onto the bus route, filling the bus with more people than I've ever seen on that journey before and causing us to arrive at my stop at 8.30 instead of 8.15, which considering I start work at 8.30 was really not that great. I arrived in the office at 8.45 having speed-walked across the city at the highest speed possible in the shoes I was wearing, with a bright red face, my (greasy) hair all over the place and generally cursing the whole of humanity. Sometimes it just isn't your day.

But hey, David Tennant's on tv tonight for a whole hour, I made tart for dinner and I ate Cadbury's Eclairs this afternoon. Things could be a lot worse.

A lady who lunches once again

Today I had a lovely time in beautiful sunny Birmingham with my friend Gemma who I met at youth wind orchestra when I was 14. We had lunch at All Bar One in Brindley Place, where I had a smoked salmon and crayfish wrap with chips, and then we transferred to Starbucks on Victoria Square where I had a hot chocolate with cream and a slice of blueberry cheesecake - highly naughty but very delicious. Here we sat and planned our holiday! Gemma's a doctor and is given a rota of nights, days and weekends when she has to work, but she has the week off at the start of November so we've decided to go on a girly break to a country house hotel near Bath. We're going to have a day shopping, a day in a spa and a Jane Austen day, and then drive home via other places possibly including Stonehenge and Cheltenham. I haven't seen Gemma properly for years so it'll be brilliant to have a few days catching up and being unashamedly girly, and we've got a 3 nights for the price of 2 deal so we can have luxury for a bargainous price!

My life is so full and exciting at the moment - the thing I'm looking forward to at the moment is our Thora trip to Yorkshire next week, then as soon as we get home it's our big birthday bash, and a week later it's my birthday! I do love October.