#125: Anatomy of a birthday weekend

This past weekend, I turned 30 in the countryside, surrounded by some of my closest friends and—unbeknownst to me—many greedy mosquitoes.

Ivan’s parents kindly leant me their home for a few days, which coincided not only with tremendous weather but a surplus of televised sport. We drank champagne, we feasted on very ripe melon, and we played after-dinner games. We swam in a river by old manor house ruins, and stood in the kitchen eating leftovers. I launched a search party after pronouncing Ilya missing, only to find him under a footstool in our bedroom. We walked up an appetite before a hearty pub lunch, where I over-ordered sides.

I’m not big on birthday revelry, but I’m so glad I organised something this year: people make 30 into such a threshold and having a celebration (as wholesome and kind-of-geriatric as it was) softened the scaries, made them cast a smaller shadow. It’s easy to forget that parties also sharpen the memory, give it something concrete to latch onto; one of my childhood memories is my mum approaching the picnic table in our old downstairs playground with a barbie dress cake (!) in her hands.

I’m glad that years from now I can look back on this birthday and remember, “Oh, it was the summer of the World Cup…I wore that red one-piece and swam in the river.”

Below the paywall: no birthday wisdom but instead details on where we swam and what we ate.