I am veering worryingly close to my 30th now. I just turned 29 having had my Birthday last weekend and now face the monthly countdown to a new era and the end to my lovely happy 20’s. All the fun and frolics of being 20 something and now I have to face up to being a grown up. I still only feel 18 so this is a bit of a problem for me. You tell people you are 30 and they have an expectation of what that should say about you, like being well into your career, a kid or 2, married, divorced, nice car, respectable house etc etc. I feel that you have to be someone when you are 30. I just don’t think I can make that happen. I don’t want to grow up, I refuse, so there!
Still, I did enjoy my Birthday. Bit peeved that with it being over the Easter holiday everyone forgot and my best friends were in France on some forced seeing the family trip so that sucked, but my husband being the great man he is (he may read this!), did try his best to make it special – in his own little odd way.
I woke up on Saturday (my Birthday) and he brought in a mountain of presents. I thought it all looked pretty exciting, loads of things to open, so I got stuck in. The first present he gave me was, wait for it… an iceberg lettuce.
“What the f**k is this”
“A gift, don’t be ungrateful, open the rest”
I hope he is f-ing joking or this leads to something great. I am not a morning person and this is not funny.
“This one better not be salad dressing. What the hell is it?”
“It’s maple syrup obviously, it says, look right there. Keep opening.”
“Okay, this is a Canadian flag, I know that coz I saw it once in a geography lesson at school! Why on Earth have you given me this? The next one better be worth a lot of money I can tell ya” Clearly I really am the most ungrateful person in the world.
“Just shut up and keep opening the presents will you.”
“Huh. Are we going to Canada,” I said with an excited revelation.
“Just shut up and open or I will do it for you.”
“Alright moody, didn’t know there was a time limit.” I continued opening.
“Hmm, Celine Dion DVD….. oh my God….. are we going to Canada? Are we going to Canada to see Celine Dion? Are we going to Las Vegas?….. What, what, what are we doing?”
“You’ll find out, just keep opening.”
By this point I was really starting to lose interest. I HATE surprises, I cannot stand not knowing things, or not being able to plan. I wished he would just tell me, I was getting tetchy. Anyway I kept opening all these little presents, a couple of other DVD’s, some jewellery, a lovely charm bracelet with a graduation hat on to signify where we first met (puke!) and a few other little things.
Finally I finished opening everything and I asked him what we were doing as opening everything else had not given me any more indication. Or worse he was winding me up and I was going to kill him. Then he said I hadn’t opened everything yet. I kept looking but there were no other presents, I was really getting fed up. Then he told me to open the Celine Dion DVD and in there he had put 2 tickets for us to go and see her play live on her word tour in May to the O2. Wicked! I love Celine Dion, as much as I love Elton John in fact. OK, not really to everyone’s taste, but I am practically 30 so that must be more acceptable now. Alright, I admit that it’s sad but I think she is great and I am huge fan so this was an amazing present. Damn, he’s going to want something for this!
Morning gifts over with, he was taking me to London for the day starting with Selfridges – great wonder if he will buy me a nice expensive bag? No chance and I would have to listen to him whine for hours so I’ll just have a quick look then we can move on. 10 mile walk in the freezing cold later (as he insisted there were no cabs despite a thousand flying past), he took me to little intimate bowling alley with a cocktail bar and everything. Slightly odd treat but you couldn’t put a price on the amount of laughs we got out of it when 2 people on either side of us went to bowl, not paying any attention as to why there is a big black foul line separating the part you step on to the part the ball rolls on and both of them fell flat on their faces. It was absolutely hilarious, and what made it even funnier was when they stood up, in amazement they both said “be careful, it’s really slippery on there…” No shit!!! I often wondered what oil on a shiny surface felt like – muppets!
After a few cocktails and jug of beer it was fair to say I was feeling a little tipsy, so we went to walk to the next place. Yeah walk. What is wrong with that man, I wonder whether he realises you can just hail a cab in London, you don’t have to book in advance. I was more than willing to flash some flesh if that would have helped but he wouldn’t let me. Probably a wise choice, it was pretty cold!
Next place was the restaurant, Dans Le Noir. What an amazing experience. As you would expect, you eat in the dark. And when I say dark, I mean you see nothing, I have never been in such darkness in my life. I have to admit that for someone who has to sleep with night lights on in the house, I did get a little bit panicked as the blind waiter separated me from my husband to seat me the other side of the table. The thoughts going through my head at this point were how will I know whose leg I am touching or whose hand I am holding? You can’t get done for sexual harassment if you have no idea you are doing anything can you?!
It was a table of 12, all couples and all strangers. The best thing about eating in the dark, other than it being totally acceptable to make slob of yourself, is that all your inhibitions are completely stripped away. Ordinarily I wouldn’t talk to random people I didn’t know nor would I be interested in starting conversations with them. I also wouldn’t lean round and tap the person next to me on their shoulder so they thought someone else did it. I wouldn’t hide their drinks just for the fun of it and take amusement at them frantically feeling their way to find it. They couldn’t see it was me, so what they hell! They wouldn’t even know it was me when got back in the light. No problem….. until we went to pay and I looked up behind the bar and there on the big screen was displayed CCTV of the restaurant in night vision cameras so everyone can have a good laugh at what’s going on. Oh God, wonder if the guy I took the piss out of is that 7 foot rugby player over there?!! Come on Mart, let’s go now!
