Birthdays and Anniversaries

I have been meaning to write a few blogs this week but it all seems to have gone by ridiculously quickly and what with birthdays, Girls Aloud events, a fabulous strop at said event (not by me, but I don’t tell tales), being frozen for 90% of the week, catching the ‘bug’ and some antics involving theft of a traffic cone its been quite a week and its only Friday morning. I am sadly still feeling like death warmed up but am back in the blogosphere.

Last Sunday was Mr B’s birthday; it also happens that the same day as our anniversary. Yes Mr B was lucky enough to have me pretty much in a big drunken bow as his 27th birthday present when we came face to face on a dancefloor and I frowned at him… I was trying to get to the bar. The dancefloor in question is one that is soon to be knocked down just like our wedding ‘masked ball’ venue will be... is that telling us something? Anyway people always say ‘oh its so romantic that you met on his birthday’ (unless you happen to be my Gran who reminded me that my mother met her first husband on his birthday and he died before they were married seven months, she’s special my Gran). You either get the ‘romantic view’ or you get people who make vomit signs, which is what I would do if it wasn’t me involved in all honesty.

It does have a certain romance about it, well when you tell people that is, and true enough some people could use the word fate or destiny or simply ‘a sweet coincidence’. In reality not so much, especially after being together a while, the novelty wears of and instead you are left with a very strange unbalancing equilibrium of present buying and over compensating. For example the rules are a bit off, I mean you shouldn’t really have to be buying someone else presents on your birthday should you? There is of course a massive row waiting to be had over who will pay the bill over lunch and/or dinner, with one of you wanting to buy as an anniversary or birthday treat, the other trying to pay as an anniversary treat, it gets very confusing and it gets very vexing.

There is also the problem that one of you might not like birthdays at it brings back some sad memories and makes you think about where your life is going. On my birthday getting older isn’t really on my mind as I have hit the spirits by 11am in an aim to get the damn day over as quickly as possible as intoxicated as possible. This year was a hard one as it was the first without Bong. Mr B still misses his mother so much and when no one else in your family even bothers to call I think it made him feel particularly uncelebratory. Now this leads to one of you wanting to spend the day in bed curtains closed and shutting out the world. The other one of you is off running out to buy a birthday breakfast and some final presents and being all excited about the day ahead filling it with plans and expectations. It leads to rows, irritation and in the case of this year sulks in the bath, refusals to go out at all in the evening and a chicken being thrown. I won’t say who did what but I did one of the above.

I wondered whether it was the fact that the day was an anti-climax. You know, when you have things to celebrate I feel that I should be on cloud nine all day – not realistic but that’s the way that my mind works. I mean on my wedding day I was so insistent everyone else was having a good time it took me a while to relax and have one myself. By 7pm we weren’t speaking, he was lurking downstairs whilst I prowled upstairs. It wasn’t the fun we intended. Now I don’t know how it happened, I think I got the giggles over a stray piece of chicken that fell from the ceiling and landing on Mr B but before we knew it we were laughing hysterically all the way to the curry house. We didn’t fight over the bill, we simply relaxed and remembered the most important thing, not the presents or the ‘forced best day’ just being together and ourselves, it just so happened one of us had gotten a small bit older and maybe should have known better, sorry I had to get that in there.