I have consumed more alcohol this weekend than I can remember getting through (and surviving) in quite some time. It must be a birthday survivability thing.
It started yesterday evening when we invited friends round to our house to have dinner with us (as evidenced by the photo above) - and yes, the photo is a deliberate attempt to capture us at this point in our lives - very “St Elmos Fire”. I always kick myself after parties that I should have grabbed people for group photos. The photos can then be given out for people to remember “that evening when Jonathan got childrens presents and we all got a bit drunk”. We are probably going to get this one printed and put in a frame somewhere around the house.
We all ate lots, and drank a little of everthing we have - champagne, wine, port, tokaj, sherry, whisky, brandy, and various other tipples. I felt surprisingly good at the end of the night - it’s funny how that works when you are entertaining.
By complete surprise, as everybody was leaving, W pulled out “party bags” to give everybody. You have never seen such glee on a group of thirty-something’s faces. We were given various small bags of chocolate buttons, toy creepy crawlies, plastic jewellery, and other such novelties - and everybody informed me (with suitably toothy gins) just how lucky I am to “have a W”.
We finally rolled into bed in the early hours, and were back up at 9 this morning, expecting W’s parents to arrive for the day. While W went walking with her Mum, I went with her Dad and Brother to some of the pubs in Marlow that we are not usually allowed in (because they are a bit rough around the edges, but much more like the pubs I remember from my childhood).
The weekend has been one to remember. A weekend I shared with friends to celebrate my 34th birthday. There was food, cake, drink, good company, silly conversation, and and excellent time was had by all throughout the weekend.
We should have more weekends like this.