Over-eating, over-drinking, and simulating cage sex in a cowboy hat

I had a very good birthday weekend in the end, and feel that my 28th birthday was adequately celebrated.

A couple of our friends came down on Saturday to stay, and we had a nice meal out at Café Rouge. I don't go there very often, but the food was very good and it was made all the sweeter by our triumphant production of money-off vouchers that knocked about 25% off the bill at the end. I always feel like you look a little bit cheap when you say you've got a voucher, but it's unlikely we would have eaten there without them so they should be grateful damn it.

Then we did a little bar hopping on Saturday night, just to a few places like Dr Brightons, the Bulldog, Vavoom and R-Bar. Oh and a new one as well, the Kings Arms, which is a new bear-type pub. R-Bar had their music up ridiculously loud, to the point where it actually hurt my ears, so they are in my bad books now because I just don't see the need for it. You couldn't talk to anyone, you had to just sit there and wait for your ears to bleed.

On Sunday we wandered around the shops, Chris made us a yummy lasagne for dinner, and then we got all dressed up for the Wild Fruit Sex Saloon. We enjoy dressing up, it makes the night more fun, and when you're in costume strangers seem to assume that you're a confident and fun type of person so they talk to you more (regardless of whether you actually are confident or fun. I am neither).

Wild Fruit was really good. It was very busy, as usual, and there are always lots of pretty boys there. The music in the pop room was really, really good, so we pretty much just danced in there all night. It's always a bit quiet in the pop room, most people tend to stay in the dancy main room, but they do have an enjoyable cage type podium where you can practice your pole dancing and take stupid photos of yourself pretending to bum your friends or hanging upside. Chris does the hanging upside down rather than me, he's considerably more athletic and I'm not prepared to risk a broken neck for a photo.

We stayed until the end, and must have still been quite hyped up because we decided to go back to Vavoom for a bit afterwards just to make sure we really had drunk as much as we could. It was 5am and the sun was coming up by the time we went to bed, and I have to admit that seeing the sun come up before I'd been to sleep did make me feel slightly hysterical. It's unlike me to be out that late without fainting, throwing up, or falling asleep in a corner. I bet it was part of some subconscious need to prove that "I've still got it" and can party until 5am despite being 28.

Monday was, unsurprisingly, a little more subdued, and I had a slightly green tint to my not-so-youthful complexion until about 3 o'clock. We did manage another lunch out though (I must have consumed about 40,000 calories over the weekend) before our friends headed off home. They got caught in the stupid protester twattiness unfortunately (see previous post), but eventually made it out of the city after several diversions to avoid the imbeciles.

So it was an excellent weekend all in all. I'm only just today getting over my tiredness, I don't bounce back like I used to when I was 19, but I've had a quiet couple of days at work at least, and if you can't wear yourself out celebrating your birthday then I don't know when you can.