My Thirty Fifth Birthday Barbecue

A few weeks ago I was having a little crisis of self about turning thirty five and yet not having completed some of the things that were high up on my bucket list.

This Friday just gone was not only Easter Good Friday, but also my birthday and so as it marked the midpoint between being thirty and forty I decided it was reason enough to hold a party.

Being a lover of barbeques, I had planned and sent out invitations over a month ago inviting my nearest and dearest, mentioning that it would be a barbeque if the weather was good and a chilli con-carne if not.

Thankfully as the week progressed and Friday neared the weather forecast improved from dry and warm to clear and hot, the perfect conditions under which you should hold a barbecue.

Having ordered the food and drink online to be delivered a few hours before the party started, when Friday morning came all I had to do was clear up and clean a little, making sure that everything looked as nice as they possibly could.

The first guests arrived almost bang on time, being my eldest sister and her three young daughters, and we were soon joined by my friend Sue who is loud enough to be a party all by herself.

Within an hour the house and garden filled up, so much in fact that I doubted that my small garden would be big enough to accommodate them all, certainly I did not have this many garden chairs.

As per the Springate's custom, I was not expecting to receive any presents, having passed the age of twenty one many years ago, but I also knew that my mother would probably smuggle a little gift into the party anyway.

I had chosen to use round charcoal briquettes to cook with, as they last longer than wood or the black imitation wood splinters, but they do take a bit longer to get good and hot.

Another of my bright ideas was to get a few extra large burgers instead of a bargain bucket load of cheap smaller burgers, an idea which ended up being a bad one as although they were very tasty there was also not enough to go around and they took up so much of the barbeque that most of my guests had to wait quite some time before there was anything for them to eat.

Despite this minor hiccup a great time was had by all; there were no tears or crying and nothing got broken or damaged that I noticed, not even my bank balance.

By the early evening most of the guests had ate, wished me a happy birthday and left, yet Paola and Lendel were still due to arrive, having had to wait for Lendel to finish off his shift before they left.

As they had never visited Gillingham before I ensured that I met them at the train station and together we all walked back, remarking at how different Gillingham was compared with Central London.

Being a typical British party and a small house, it was quite different from the loud Latin parties that they were used to, but they still seemed to enjoy just chilling with me and a few friends till it was finally time for everyone to go home and catch their train home.

As is my own custom, I decided to delay the massive after party clearing up session until the morning, made myself a bacon sandwich and then spent the last few minutes of wakefulness watching the last few episodes of Boardwalk Empire before I retired to bed.