Reality, the hardest thing to fake

So it was my birthday last week, happy birthday to me! No real cause for alarm, just the fact that turning 28 had the same affect as turning 27 - a massive hangover. Every year I tell myself I will not wake up feeling crap on my birthday after a massive bender, and yet every year I end up doing just that. Last year I went out for drinks with some colleagues after work and got home at 2.30am, with the added bonus of having to go to work the following day AND have Tom take me out for dinner and to see Bill Bailey as my birthday treat. How I wished I had been sensible, and I felt like a horrible person for not quite being able to chirp myself (and my stomach) into a better mood by dinner time.

This year we had a wine tasting evening after work, it was paid for and would have been rude not to. The tasting started off with 3 glasses of champagne and some nibbles, and went on to cover tastings of 10 various, and rather delicious, wines. Now I know I wasn't forced to drink every single one, but they could have made the servings a little smaller - each 'taster' was half a glass full - so essentially 5 proper glasses of wine later I managed to pour a whole glass of red wine on my lap and smash the glass I was drinking out of. The shame! I digress...I managed to get home at 2.30am again - this seems to be a benchmark for me - and felt the worst I've felt in a long time the next day at work. That's right, at work. Luckily this time Tom had been give prior warning and my actual birthday was a lovely chilled out affair with a take-away and a cuddle on the sofa.

Then for the big one, a night out in Soho in the not-so-inspiringly named Garlic and Shots. As even the dimmest of you will be able to recognise, the clue was in the title. It serves garlic, it serves shots. It's a garlic themed restaurant and the food is A-MAZ-ING! I mean, actually awesome, if you like garlic. They also have 101 different flavoured shots which include garlic flavours as well as a host of other horrors. We played a game of picking a number, downing the shot and trying to guess what it was. Tom by far got the worst one of sambuca, tequila and tabasco. Poor boy! Myself and my lovely group of friends continued our drinking out of the restaurant and into the wet night of Soho, and danced and partied the night away in Be@One. It was a wicked night, so thanks to all who came.

Now, onto more important things, an update if you will. I managed to read the entire Twilight series in a week in the end, and am happy to report that it is as fantastic and exciting as I had initially reported, with the last book leaving me distraught that it was all over. Devastated is a word I'd use, and not lightly at that. It got into my head and my heart and I loved it - I can shamelessly say that these books affected me, and I have no idea why. All I know is that Stephanie Meyer is a genius.

Moving on, I really feel that the gods are watching over me at the moment. Not only was I able to see the utterly amazing Pearl Jam play the O2 this year (as I documented to you all at the time), but now they are bestowing their presence upon Europe again in 2010 for a full album tour! How my heart doth beat. I mean, seriously?! Obviously there has to be a bit of a compromise here, and that comes in the form of a festival - Hard Rock Calling. It could be worse, it could be V festival, God forbid. So thankfully Tom renewed my 10 club membership for my birthday and I was able to get fan club tickets without a problem this time round. I would love to be able to get over to Dublin, Belfast or Berlin to see them play as well, but we do have a wedding to pay for, and even I'm not dumb enough to use some of our bar tab on that, tempting though it is. Looks like I'll be fighting it out with all the other festival goers to get to the front this time though.

Next week sees the inevitable car crash that is the work Christmas party. It's being held at a very posh hotel in Knightsbridge, and is bound to be a monumental piss up, with the usual dancing, drinking and debauchery that accompanies these events. Of course the conversations at work have been littered with questions of what to wear, and I was lucky enough to have my dress bought for me by my lovely mum for my birthday, so have been spared the angst of trying to figure out how to afford a new outfit without actually spending anything. My dress is green, very festive! Oh and new shoes, courtesy of my sister in Australia who provided the funds for them. Thanks Ems! All in all it will be a great night I'm sure and will signal the end of the year in the office before a blissful few days off over Christmas, yay.

I'm hoping to write again before Christmas but if I don't have a great one to all who do read this (is there anybody out there?) and I look forward to the next year ahead...x