Girls night out.

On Friday night I went out out with some friends from work. It was organised a while back with a group of about six girls. I’d missed out on leaving drinks for my previous job and we’d had other leavers and birthdays since then so I asked the babysitters (my parents) if they would have Charlotte and they said yes. All sorted. Let the party begin!

However, as time got closer and two girls bailed I realised I would be going out with two twenty two year olds and a twenty five year old. All who are hot and slim and hair is perfectly quaffed. They’ve also perfected that pout in all their Instagram poses which I cannot do without it looking comedy.

I started panicking. What the hell was I going to wear? I didn’t want to look like mutton dressed as lamb but I also knew that my ‘jeans and a floaty top’ combo would not cut it this time.

Queue panic mode. The only info I had was that one was wearing a backless play suit and another, a dress. I tried not to snigger at the idea of me in a backless play suit and tried to get serious so left work early to rush down to the nearest Outfit and buy the trendiest thing I could find. I realised very quickly that a crop top and shorts would not be the way forward however, so turned around and walked out.

I had planned to have the evening to sort myself out but, as they always do, plans changed and I had to pick up Charlotte from nursery, entertain her and try and get ready all at the same time. Easy peasy of course. I missed random bits of my leg whilst shaving, I have never applied fake tan so quickly, my hair dried into a fluffball despite all normal products being used and I still didn’t know what to wear. I stopped counting the amount of times my skinny jeans came on and off but I decided on a dress in the end. I say decided, I mean my friend was waiting outside to pick me up whilst I was wearing it so I had no choice.

I did my make up in the car and realised I had forgotten my mascara. The one item my face can not live without.  I felt old, my tan was somewhat haphazard, my hair was poofing at a rate of knots and now I would look like I was half asleep as well.
 

The end of the night

 Whilst out I got skipped over being ID’d twice (both times all my friends did), I realised I knew the words to songs the rest of my group had never heard before, I ordered a single measure of gin despite doubles being only a few pence extra and I wanted to dance when apparently it was not cool to do so.

Things I learnt through the night were;

• that Coventry is a pretty crap night out
• despite not looking ‘old’, I definitely do not look young
• drinking out of volcanoes is never a good idea
• and dance music and strobe lights is not my idea of good music to dance to. 

  

  The aforementioned volcano – who knows what was in there!

    

  

  Us pretending we’re enjoying the said beverage.

   

So at 1.30am I took my poorly feet and bottle of water home and hoped for at least a lie in the next morning…

I didn’t get one – damn you body clock!!

Too old to drink.

I can’t drink anymore. Two weeks after my 31st birthday and I definitely can no longer cope with late nights and lots of alcohol.  The night was great, just the aftermath…not so much.

We saw a band in a bar who played all the best 90’s and 00’s hits.  Think TLC- Waterfalls and Beyonce’s Work It Out. The bar had no white wine and only one bottle of prosecco but it got us in the mood. 

 We tried to find a club and realised we were in totally the wrong part of the city. 

We stopped for a drink in a Hawaiian themed club but after spying at least three hen do’s quickly moved on. 

  
We visited the most cheesy club you could ever possibly imagine called PopWorld.  It had no air-conditioning, the floor was sticky, the clientele looked like extras from ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ but the drinks were cheap and the music was cheesy so, like the sensible ladies we are, we decided to drink until it got fun and I couldn’t feel my feet hurting (breaking in your new, nude stilettos is not a great idea for these type of nights out apparently) 

Two double gin and tonics and we were getting there. We had a little dance and also managed to find the only working (albeit intermittently) air con unit, we were happy! 

Somehow in the midst of this I also managed to pull a guy. He was hot, his name was Sam, he was 28 so we snogged.  Apparently the G&T’s had lowered my age as well as my inhibitions!  It was a proper snog – hilarious!

We swapped numbers but the next time I saw his phone it was being hurled into the road I was standing next to and a woman in Doc Martins was stamping on it! She’d pissed him off so he threw her bag somewhere, then she threw his phone into the road and stamped on it. Somehow I don’t think I’ll be getting a call back from him. 
 So another club, indelible ink stamped on my hand, a packed dance floor, some more drinks and it was definitely home time. 4am, we’d stayed out till 4am!  

 We snuck in so as not to wake Rachel’s fiancé (we found out later we failed royally), we got changed, took our make up off and went to bed. I couldn’t possibly comment whether I was sick in Rachel’s sink before actually falling asleep or not. 

I woke up at 10.30am, which on any other day I would be so excited by as I haven’t had a lie in till then for years, but I felt rough. ROUGH. Get up and be sick, then go to sleep again – rough. I normally have a fairly cast iron stomach but apparently not anymore. 

All my hangover cures failed. Full fat coke – nope. Toast and butter – nope. Rachel even cooked me her fail safe Mac and Cheese but one bite and I knew it wasn’t going to work! 

So after a delicate drive home and a MacDonald’s on the way I came to the conclusion I am now old. Thank goodness for Bank Holiday weekends were me and my feet can have two days to recover, scrub off the sharpie from my hand and visit a friends farm and eat cake with Charlotte.    

Hope you all had a good one! 

The difference between nights out in your 20’s and 30’s.

This weekend I went on my sister-in-law-to-be’s hen do. I am still recovering, two days later. After ten months of being thirty I’m starting to see that there is actually a difference in how I approach a night out and how I react to the aftermath of said night out. For instance…

Organising:
20’s – phone call…night of the party/drinks etc
“What you up to?”
“Not much, you?”
“Not a lot…fancy going out for a drink?”
“Yeah, sounds good. See you in an hour”
30’s – phone call three weeks before party/drinks etc
“I haven’t seen you in ages, we need a night out…are you free three Saturdays from now?”
“Can I get back to you? I need to check my diary, see if I can get a babysitter, we’re on a sleep routine so not sure if I want to rock the boat…”

Preparation:
20’s – shower, blowdry hair, apply make up, put on one of the many dresses you have, pick a pair of shoes and matching bag.
30’s – book in to the salon to have a spray tan to try and make you look slim and less tired, browse the range of Spanx online, dive into Outfit the afternoon of the event after doing your big shop and realise that you hate your body and nothing you try on looks good, give up and go home, throw everything out of the wardrobe whilst having a breakdown, realise you now haven’t got time for a shower so use a baby wipe and put on your staple ‘smart jeans’ and floaty top to cover the muffin top (gave up on the Spanx after pulling a muscle trying to put them on).

The going out bag:
20’s – a sleek clutch style bag which only contains a lipgloss, your bank card, your keys and your phone.
30’s – an over the shoulder style bag because it’s more practical and so you can fit in your entire wallet, your phone, your phone charger because you inevitably forgot to charge it and won’t have enough battery to show everyone pictures of your gorgeous daughter, your entire make up bag, some tissues, an odd child’s size sock (how did that get in there?) tampons (because you never know) and condoms (because you never know!).

The hair:
20’s – long and flowing, straightened or curled with some form of heating iron or up with 1000 hair grips and a gallon of hairspray keeping it there.
30’s – you’re lucky if you get time to wash it, let alone dry it. I work on the natural look and bed head’s meant to be sexy, no?

The legs:
20’s – naked legs, shaved all the way up and fake tan beautifully applied.
30’s – 600 denier tights, no one will get a look at the hairy pasty legs hiding underneath.

During:
20’s – drink, flirt, drink, dance
30’s – drink, have a sit down, drink, sneak a cranberry juice in, check your phone to make sure the babysitter hasn’t called, cast your eye around the bar and realise that all the guys are 10 years younger than you, flirt anyway, drink, dance, but feel really self conscious as you do so in case you are doing a ‘mum dance’.

The aftermath:
20’s – throw up when you get in, but feel well enough to eat a fry up the next day around 12pm when you finally rise from your bed.
30’s – not be sick, so still feel sick when your evil body clock (or worse, a toddler) wakes you up at 7.30am. Eat toast gingerly and try and stop the head from exploding with water, coffee and ibuprofen whilst telling said toddler that mummy needs a quiet day and hoping they’ll be happy watching cbeebies for the next couple of hours.

Memory:
20’s – not remembering what happened so thinking you had a great night.
30’s – remembering everything that happened, so knowing you made a complete arse out of yourself and exactly why you have that massive bruise.

Lessons learnt:
20’s – none. You meet your friends in the pub that evening and order a beer, claiming hair of the dog.
30’s – none, you vow you will never drink again. Alcohol is empty calories anyway. This lasts two whole days until you realise that you miss wine.

Despite all if the above I had a great time this weekend and will no doubt be doing it all again shortly…maybe a couple less Jäger bombs next time though.