Birthday shenanigans

Well, actually, the week's fun started on Monday night with a dinner at the restaurant below my apartment, conveniently enough, not in celebration of my birthday but of Jim's imminent departure (although celebration isn't quite the word, as we were all very sorry to see him go). For a change, we opted for a civilized dinner rather than a piss-up, and very nice it was too. I struck boldly out for French civilization and tried the snails. Although in my vocabulary 'tried' is really one or two, not a giant plate of 12, but oh well. The first challenge with the snails was that they arrived in their shells. Oh dear, unforeseen obstacle. I was equipped with a teensy little fork and some pincery things. The table was polled, and we decided that one cracked the shell open and then speared the snail meat. Right, to work... Not a success. The table was polled again, and this time the consensus was that perhaps one gripped the snail with the pincers and dug the meat out with the little fork. This time, it worked, thankfully without the predicted "Pretty Woman" moment where the snail flies across the room. However, if you think digging a snail's innards out is an easy task, you would still be mistaken. As for the taste? Well, I didn't think it was awful. Some of the crew who also had a try were appalled, but I found them edible, although was definitely flagging at the end of the plate. Luckily I also had a tres delish chevre chaud salad miam miam!

Tuesday night was birthday drinks night, in honour of my birthday on Wednesday falling on my day off (post-drinkies staying in bed). It ended up not being a huge night, but it was a pleasant evening nonetheless. Home probably about 1.30 for a lovely sleep until much the same time the next day. After that, I had lunch with a couple of friends and then went to the movies at night, so all very nice.

Can't say I particularly feel 25ish, will I ever? Feeling positive about having made some long-term career details however - of which more to follow - so maybe I am on the way to being a real, live grown-up. Ha.