Waking up at 9am on a Sunday is never ideal, but waking up at 9am on a Sunday, having had only gotten in to bed less than five hours previously (see part 3), and after a run of three late nights (see part 1 and part 2), was painful but knowing that there was a bacon sarnie with my name on it, being cooked at my parents’ house made it easier to drag myself out of bed for Part 4 of the proceedings…
The Family Day
Some highlights include:
- Hangover breakfast
- Watching Mr G snooze in the corner knowing his job was well done!
- Champagne and presents with the family
- More balloons, banners and chocolate roses
- Reading my birthday book (and crying)
- Watching the tennis en masse
- Fave dinner
- Cake
- Getting to bed before midnight for the first time in three days!
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| Poodle jumper and Tatty Devine Lolly necklace (Thanks Laura) |
A quick shower, a barmy outfit selection, as much light-reflecting concealer on my eye bags as I could manage without looking like a cast member of TOWIE, some yelling to wake the sleeping Griffiths in the flat (Mr G and my sister in law Kate) and we were ready to go!
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| all tuckered out! |
Within three seconds of walking through the front door I was munching on a bacon sandwich (white bread, no butter, brown sauce), slurping and Innocent smoothie and a cup of tea.
Within three seconds of walking through the front door, Mr G was curled up in a little ball in the corner snoozing.
Charming!
A relaxed morning and afternoon followed of tennis-watching, champagne-quaffing, birthday present opening (yet more gorgeous presents), general birthday present admiring and discussions on birthday money spending plans (current thoughts are the blue lizard Pippa bag or a cherry-red evening bag from Aspinals) .
Eventually, the tennis came to a close, and we settled down en masse for my choice of dinner (traditional in our household!) - so I picked a starter from years ago, that my mum cooked for a dinner party, and promised to cook for me, and never did: grilled goat’s cheese on puy lentils and salad, topped with grilled, vine tomatoes. This was followed by my all-time fave homemade meal - my mum’s homemade lasagne and avocado salad with her homemade dressing – the recipe has been passed down through the Italian side of the family, and Mr G has made it his life (culinary) mission to replicate it for me (too cute). It was yumma!
We rounded it off with a good old family debate (traditional Christmas-style) and some more cake and candles, which went beautifully with tea (or coffee, for those that needed it!) and some sofa snuggles as I settled in to read my This is Your Life (so far)… book from my friends and family.
And the tears began to flow.
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| a proper tear-jerker! |
I put a similar book together for Kim on her 30th and the words people wrote made me well up then. But when the words were personal to me I found it very hard to keep it together.
Special memories, stories from days gone by and words of love and friendship all pulled together in one place and surrounded by photos (cleverly pinched from my external hard drive – Christ – there’s over 250,000 photos on there, so that took some dedication!) took my breath away.
And that is all I can say about that, without welling up all over again.
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| balloons and banners (and massive slippers) |
Eventually, Mr G and I made our weary way home, and flopped in to bed almost the instant we walked through the door.
I think the last time I was that shattered, emotional and happy was after our four day wedding rave, so I think I did well to match it, you know, seeing as now I’m getting on a bit!
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| cake number four - yumma! |
Happy 30th to me – and the HUGEST thank you to my wonderful husband, friends and family for every last thing you did. The detail, the thoughtfulness, the planning, the collusion and the secret-squirreling.
I love you all!
Mwah x
So there’s more to come as my girls got me a little “experience” for my birthday to go with my gift, and that is happening next weekend, so I suppose that’ll constitute Part 5 of the proceedings and I’ll be reporting back on that as soon as possible. Until then….
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| chocolate roses |
It was fun and a pleasure :-)
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