Birthday Weekend

My birthday/Easter bank holiday weekend was brilliant.

We started off the festivities on the Thursday night at the xfm big night out at the Brixton Academy.
We went with some of the lads PM knows from Sunderland - Mark and The Judge (or James to normal people) and their friend Ben and Mark's flatmate Maz.

A good night was had by all. I can't remember the last time I danced so hard and for so long. So many good tunes. The bands were a bit hit and miss. The first were New Young Pony Club. Apart from one song that I had heard, the rest were pretty poor to be fair. Next up were the Rumble Strips who were pretty cool and finally we had The Enemy. I really enjoyed them but I think the rest were pretty undecided.

We finally left just before 3am and managed to find a fried chicken place open in Streatham that provided much need munch on the way home!

Friday was a quiet day for us both. PM stayed in all day while I went to the gym with Mum and then to do some shopping. A quiet evening in followed.

Saturday, we were up early and heading down to Gillingham for Ben's birthday festivities. We started off with a chill out in the garden (there used to be a swimming pool there but they got rid of it). The boys opted for the hot tub but none of us girls would get in and PM didn't bring any trunks so also had to abstain.

After a quick BBQ, we headed down the the Ice Rink for half an hour of skating. Thank you to the people at the rink who let us in for free as we didn't have much skating time left.


It was my first time on the ice for over 3 years. I'm a bit rusty and its odd skating without half a ton of padding (ice hockey gear in case you are wondering what I am chatting about). I look forward to hopefully playing sometime in the near future - just have to remember how to skate again.

After skating we headed back to Ben's. This time I ventured into the hot tub. Its very strange being in a hot tub outside. The only one I have ever been in has been at the gym.


Once dry we headed to a restaurant for dinner. It was a Greek place so we had lots of little dishes (meze) between us. Only problem was they forgot a lot of it, we got our meals all at different times (despite the waitress suggesting that we get the meze so that are meals came out together), they only had the more expensive wine on the menu, the 'fresh fruit' consisted of a banana, orange and slices of apple and then they ruined the surprise cake we had for Ben by announcing that we wouldn't want dessert as we had brought our own. To top it off they didn't accept credit cards which was a problem for me and PM as we only had credit cards as pay day was a week away. Thankfully Nic and Dan lent us the money for the meal so we didn't have to wash any dishes.

Sunday was my actual birthday. I reached the ripe old age of 26. Its scaring me how close I am getting to 30 now! Anyway, PM had arranged a surprise trip. I had no idea where I was going. We got the train and then the tube to Tottenham Hale. As the trains only went to Standstead and Cambridge and I didn't bring my passport, I had a fair idea where we were going at this stage.

What can I say - its a beautiful place. I have never seen so many bikes and churches in one place! Once we had dropped our bags off at the hotel, we wandered into the town and checked out the market. After we wandered up to the river and through some of the colleges. We carried on wandering around trying to find somewhere for dinner and finally settled on a place called Strada.

Full up from dinner we headed back to the hotel and crashed. In the morning we had the full English breakfast before heading back out for more wandering. We wanted to look round the museums but as it was the Easter Weekend none of them were open. Instead we checked out some of the parks before jumping on a Punt to take us along the river. It was very relaxing and the buildings were amazing as were the bridges. By the time we headed back, both our cameras had died which was annoying.

Once off the Punt we looked around for lunch but no where was serving. We went into a tea room and had a cup of tea before heading back to the station.

An action packed weekend but enjoyable. I recommend Cambridge as a great City break.

All the photos from the weekend can be found on my Ringo page if you want to go and check them out. Either click here or click on the link in my links section.