Sunday 18th August 2019

All credit to Kylie, I was quietly trying to ignore my birthday as I do every year but the lovely lady organised a birthday/welcoming party of her nearest and dearest to help celebrate my day. We also let the Geordie tag along. We still can’t seem to shake him…

After Facetime calls from home, smiling like I hadn’t just drank Connor out of all the gin in England, we headed off for our afternoon destination, the Mercato Markets. Like me, you’re probs thinking markets aren’t really where you’d expect to have birthday drinks, am I right?? Once again, the Brits kick our arse when it comes to markets. Add a gin distillery, a brew house, an epic beer garden and food stalls from every corner of the globe and you have the Mercato Markets. Bloody brilliant place to spend a birthday, even for a grinch like me!! And there were ribs, which after bacon are the easiest way to make me happy… my birthday in summary: eat, drink, laugh, repeat… fingers crossed for many more birthday repeats to come!!

So now to the serious stuff. Taking stock of your life on your birthday can be dangerous, or fulfilling. I’m somewhere in between. I’m now hitting late thirties and in all honesty, I’m not in the place I thought I’d be. And I don’t mean the UK. I’m not embarrassed to admit that I wanted the fairytale life. Meet the man of my dreams, fall in love, have a family, travel and just be overwhelmingly happy. There’s a reason all the fairytales finish with the man and woman falling in love then the line “they lived happily ever after” thrown in for good measure. It’d be too scary for little girls everywhere if they actually showed you all the bumps in the road and curve balls between falling in love and the happily ever after. I am lucky enough to have been in love, honestly and truly three times. One died and the other two just didn’t want the same things in life. People have different fairytales. Am I hopeful there’s more love in the future?? Yes and no. I would like for it to happen again, there’s no better feeling in the world than holding the person you love, ok maybe having kids feels better?? And bacon with avo is pretty damn good…. I’ve already been lucky enough to experience all that, possibly more so than other people have so I’m not holding my breathe for that feeling again. I’m not going to revolve my life around finding my person, I’m going to revolve it around me. Sounds narcissistic, I know. And I have been told lately that I make everything about myself, character flaw. I guess what I mean is that my world is going to revolve around being happy with who I am, where I am and being alone. If someone comes along and adds to that happiness, then great but I’m not counting on it. So yeah I’m getting older and the fairytale hasn’t worked out how I thought it would, but maybe I’ll write a new fairytale for little girls, one that says you’ll fall in love, you might lose the person you love but you’ll be ok. Love the person you are and surround yourself with people that love that person too. Do that and you’ll live happily every after. Cue the line “And SHE lived happily ever after”.

Yeah, that was a bit lame but whatevs… it’s my birthday and I can be lame if I want to…