Tuesday the 19th was my 21st birthday. It was magical. I’d been looking forward to spending it abroad, but in the end it was lovely to have a day with my family. Normally at this time of year I’d be studying for and/or sitting exams that have steadily increased in importance for the past 10 years, so it was brilliant just to have a guilt-free day of relaxing!
It started on Monday night, when I got home late from work to find my brother Oli and his long-term girlfriend Lucinda had arrived from Cambridge as a surprise. I hadn’t seen them in person since before I left for Argentina last July, so I was very happy to see them both! We ate a dinner of nasi goreng, one of my favourite meals, and drank a large bottle of white wine – perfect with the spicy rice dish.
I woke up on the 19th to messages from friends, the kitchen decorated with bunting and banners, and a stack of cards, including one whose sender we couldn’t quite identify! If there’s a James in Australia reading, thank you 😆.
I also opened two necklaces, one old, one new. My dad gave me a gold compass locket, and my aunt, his sister, a pearl choker she was given by her parents, believed to have been made around a hundred years ago. I’m thinking of them as my Jagger necklaces. I feel so blessed to have such beautiful things, and to be part of the history of an antique heirloom. Perhaps one day I’ll be handing them down to my own children or niblings.
We helped each other prepare my favourite brunch dish – eggs benedict, with added smoked salmon and asparagus. My brother made a killer Hollandaise sauce, and I am the total master of poached eggs, so that was my job. I had to have a runny yolk on my birthday! My mum’s homemade sourdough was perfect with the buttery, salty sauce.
And once our brunch had gone down and the sun was past its highest point, we headed to the nearest beach! We stopped to pick up some Magnums on the way, then hit the sand pebbles. We soaked up some rays and Oli, a soon-to-be-graduate(ish) engineering student, observed the fluid dynamics of people’s kites and windsurfing sails. We took a quick dip – I strongly believe that Atlantic water keeps skin healthy – before going back home.
I got all dolled up in a dress I’d bought as a kind of birthday present to myself, ready for some fizz…
Before it was time for my ‘surprise’ video call with various friends I’ve accumulated along the way! It was brilliant to see them all ‘together’, particularly as some of them have never met, and one I have never seen in person in the UK!
Shortly after my godmother and her partner arrived, in a slight rule-bending. The last time I saw them was in Buenos Aires, so it was slightly surreal to all be together at home again!
For dinner we ate pomegranate-glazed chicken, paneer-stuffed aubergine rolls with lentils, coconut rice, and salad, and drank Malbec – what else?! Lush.
Then I was presented with a vast cake. Dark chocolate, lighter chocolate, almond made with brown sugar, and almond with vanilla sugar, all sandwiched together with dulce de leche, slathered with milk *and* dark chocolate ganaches, topped with white chocolate writing, with chocolate-dipped strawberries piled round the sides. LUSH. I was having such a perfect evening I could barely blow out the candles for smiling uncontrollably.
All too soon it was over! I never used to feel different on my birthday, but last year and this year I really have felt a change in how I think of my life, particularly since I turned 20 and left the ‘safety net’ of my teenage years – I really do feel a bit older than I did last week, strangely. I’m still getting used to being in my twenties. I’m certainly happy to have the pay rise that comes with this birthday! Quite what this year will hold for me is less certain now than it was a few months ago, but I’m looking forward to it nonetheless.
Happy birthday to me! 😘
