Fabulous Dahling

All the cakes are gone.  I should be getting Christmasy with the house but I've missed you and wanted to check in.  

So?  Fabulous?  Yup, I am now fabulously forty.  Fuck, I'm 40.  Can't quite work out how that happened but happen it did and here I am, looking fabulous.  I was meant to be 'not fat at forty' but hey, I'm fabulous instead.

Have you ever had a surprise party thrown for you?  I did, this year.  By Himself.  Fecking hell it's like walking in on your own funeral.  In a good way.  Poor Himself, he was in an awful state.  I'd done a market that day and It.  Had.  Bombed.  I was like an Antichrist.  Tired and dirty and bleugh.  I told Himself to ring A and make something up, I wasn't going out.  He said 'go to bed, have a lie down and see how you feel'.  He told me later that, in his head, he was screaming 'Fuck!!!!!!!  What am I going to do????????????'  Poor bugger ended up with an awful headache due to the stress I was causing him.  

Hahah, what I didn't know was, while I was napping and diffusing, he was in Shinners house trying to untangle balloons and convince no. 3 not to say anything about just bumping into the youngest Spain.  No. 3 is like me, he can't keep his yap shut, funny.

Anyway, so I was collected by the lovely Ad and we then collected A and we went into Malahide for a quick one before heading to Bon Appetit for dinner with Paula and Claire.  Hello Tequila coctails.  Whoopwhoop.  Then A's phone rang and she started grumbling something about her hubby forgetting his bank card or something.  We finished our drinks and strolled around to Gibneys.  She ran in and myself and Ad followed her at a slower pace.  When she never came out we went in after her.  

SURPRISE!!!!!!!

I nearly peed.  All I could see were faces I knew, but they weren't in the right place, if you know what I mean.  They were here.  In north county Dublin.  In my local.  

Like I said, it was like walking into your own funeral.  Everyone laughing and talking about you in a nice way.

All you can hear, er, here, is me going 'Oh!!!  Cackle, cackle, cackle, it's you!" over and over again.  It was brilliant, I loved it.  I never realised I had so many friends.  I never knew they liked me enough to brave nosebleeds and come over to da northside.  But they did.  And I love them.

I decided not to drink long drinks as I kept losing them . . you know how when you are a bride, or at a surprise party hosted in your honour, you have to keep circulating and cackling at people and laughing and saying stuff like 'did you have to get your passport stamped' - to the southsiders and 'thank you' and all that stuff, well, when you are doing all that you tend to put your drink down and lose it.  So I decided to drink tequila shots.  The downside of this is you keep losing your glasses as they shoot off your head.  The upside is . .  NO HANGOVER!!!  I think it's the mixer that causes dehydration and hangover.  Defo not the tequila.  So, I drank tequila and er, had the odd sneaky, and odd, ciggie with my good mate Gertrude.  

The Cakers were there, the uncle and cousins, the sister and hubby, Himself, neighbours, in-laws and school friends.  Old friends and more recently acquired ones.

I cackled and drank and was helpfully stripped out of my 'control garment' lent to me by Fiona.  I looked slinky in my dress and the slip would have been fine if I had've been going for dinner but it wasn't fine for sitting in a pub in and jumping up and down in and cackling and drinking in and . . other stuff. C. got me out of it.  In the loo.  She didn't judge me for my mismatched undies either.  Or not being skinny at 40, like I swore I would be all those years ago.  She agreed, I was fabulous and fun and that is much better.

The funniest thing about the night was, I just kept telling everyone "I'm hungry, I thought I was going to swanky Bon Appetit".  Still, a packet of king crisps and a slice of buttered bread at 3 in the morning was like manna from heaven.

Oh, oh, and the cake.  The cake was even more wonderful than me. It was made by er, Gertrude.   Who is one of my caking heroes.

Thank you Gertrude and thank you Darren a.k.a. Himself.  You blew me away and I'm so sorry for the headache.