Celebrating my 30th Birthday

I turn 30 next month and whilst I'm not really fazed by the whole ordeal I did want to do something special to celebrate. I'm not a big party person, I like to keep my social engagements on the casual side because glamour just isn't my thing.

 

I decided to have a BBQ at my parent's house, 2 months before my actual birthday, as I was hoping for good weather. Having a BBQ was the perfect, no-pressure birthday party I was looking for. With my parent's incredible help, I did most of the cooking and despite a couple of short showers on the day I had an absolutely magical time.

Unfortunately I didn't take a single picture, I was having too much fun with my friends which is most definitely a good thing. I don't mind but it would have been nice to capture a couple pictures of the food. In terms of BBQ food we had an incredible shoulder of lamb as well as the usual sausages, burgers, and family speciality scallops wrapped in bacon. We also did BBQ sweet potatoes, aubergine slices, asparagus and spring onions. The salad bar was a huge success as well. We had chicken coronation, new potatoes, corn-on-the-cob, roasted vegetables, wasabi and avocado salad, red cabbage and apple slaw, green bean and egg salad, pickled vegetables, and home made hummus, guacamole, pineapple salsa, baba ganoush, and beetroot and feta dips. I had a few vegetarians and vegans attending so I wanted to make sure they could eat as much of the food as possible (vegan sausages and home made vegan burgers FTW).

The dessert bar was a tour de force as well. My mum made the most incredible burger cake (see above) as well as her famous berry pavlova. My friend made an incredible chocolate orange cheese cake and gin and tonic jelly. I made vodka jelly watermelon slices and of course there was plenty of ice cream on offer as well.

One of my favourite things when having a party is compiling the music. I asked Steve to make a play list and he did such a wonderful job. It was full of all my favourite tunes and every time I caught a song in my ear I wanted to sing along.

 

One of the things I find difficult about compiling a play list is overcoming the sensational urge to be selfish. I love all sorts of music, discovering new bands and going to gigs is a real passion of mine, but a lot the songs I love aren't exactly mainstream. While it's all well and good making a play list of songs I absolutely adore, it's not fun when everyone else doesn't recognise the majority of what's being played.

To make my music selection more accessible I like to throw in a few party favourites to appease the masses. HMV asked me to compile a list of my favourite school disco classics so here goes:

1. Ignition (Remix) - R. Kelly

2. Cars - Gary Numan

3. Voulez-Vous - ABBA

4. Don't Stop Believin' - Journey

5. Re-Rewind - Artful Dodger

These might not be your typical school disco classics but you can't deny that they're great for a sing along.

Thanks to everyone who came to my party, I had the best day and I hope you did too. I feel so grateful to have made so many friends from blogging and it was beyond lovely to see them there.

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