Wednesday 13 December 2006

The Big Three-Oh


Oh what a birthday! But let's start from beginning. We decided to have a houseparty and prepare all the food ourselves. So we registered with Sainsbury's online and made a big shopping list to be delivered, with at least half being booze. Everything was going well, until the Thursday before the party, when Sainsbury's notified me that they would not deliver the goods on Friday, without any explanation, except that my account was now cancelled.
My parents and my sister arrived on Friday and so we all went to Sainsbury's shop where we took two trolleys and filled them up with the four-page shopping list and took a cab back. Then we started preparing and more and more friends from Germany started arriving, of course none of them at the same time.


The last one to arrive was Alex at 11 o'clock at night.
The next day, we sent all of the guests out to explore London while the rest of us kept preparing for the party.
It was fantastic, we had salmon tortilla rolls, delicious lamb koftas, spicy Japanese crackers topped with crab meat, bacon and cranberry croissants, vegetable mini wraps, and much, much more.
It was time for the party, and lots of people showed up. Marco was mixing drinks in the kitchen, my dad was trying to translate German jokes into English, and I made some flambayed mulled wine and tried to talk to as many people as possible. Then it was close to midnight. I was locked up in the kitchen while my birthday cake was lit. Then I was brought into the room and it was overwhelming.
Kate made an entire computer out of cake!!! It had a flat panel screen, ergonomic keyboard, and a mouse out of home made marzipan. The cables were liquorice. Wow!!!


We opened a few bottles of very nice champagne, cut the cake. Then we all went into the living room, where I opened up my presents.
I got wooden games, nice rum from Germany, clothes, many cards, a 30 year old whisky which was distilled in 1976, but Kate wouldn't stop with the whisky, no, I got a little card with a picture of a bunch of skydivers on it. It was not a tandem jump, no, it was a voucher for the first level of the Accelerated Freefall course. But that will have to wait until the weather is better.

The party kept going for a few more hours. I ended up being a bit drunk and playing a bit more guitar and I don't quite remember how well I sang.

The next morning the guests slowly got up, they where scattered all over the house.
We had some breakfast and played some games and then they all had to go back to Germany.

It was a fantastic 30th birthday.