Berrycakeness

(From March…)

I turned 31, and nothing changed.

I wasn’t really in the mood to celebrate my 31st year – it’s such a non birthday. You spend every year up to this one celebrating because you’re not over 30, and 31 comes along with a big fat MEH. I’m now over 30, and it’s not something to scream about.

I now work with people who were born in the ’90s, and they’re in the majority. It’s cool because as much as I am an old soul, I’m still ok as I like to drink and I keep up to date with technology (as much as I don’t use it). I say technology, but it’s not really technology, it’s apps such as Instagram that I don’t care much for – I will log in every now and then to see what people are up to, but most of my friends who use it also post to Facebook, which I check more regularly. Therefore, Instagram has a special place for Saturday morning lie-ins where I spend an hour catching up on a weeks worth of posts, followed by an hour of catching up on all of the Facebook videos I’ve saved to watch when I have a good WiFi signal. It’s not really technology to me, it’s keyboard socialising. The last time I was any good at that was back in the MSN messenger days – And I expect that’s only because I was a teenager. I suppose WhatsApp is the closest method of communication I use that’s anywhere near the messenger times, groups especially. I enjoy the mass posts and how everyone in a group pretty much ignores what the other has posted unless the group is 5 people or less. 5 has been the sweet spot for me, anything over that tends to get ignored.

At least there isn’t that awful option of pinging someone so their conversation window vibrates all over the screen and, if you were unfortunate enough to have a pair of speakers linked to your PC and turned up too high because you were trying to rebel by playing 00’s music through a tin can, the loudest bell sound ever. It scared me frequently.

Here I am reminiscing about my youth instead of talking about being 31. I think now I’m over 30 all I’ll ever do is speak about times when life seemed hard but was actually excellent because I’m more sensible than I like to admit.

What does 31 mean to me? Not much, as I’ve already hinted towards. I have already thrown my holiday plans out of the window, this year I planned to take lots of short trips away, and instead, I’ve booked a 3 week holiday to Sydney. That’s mainly because so far I’ve been to Norway, Amsterdam, Paris and Birmingham.

I left Birmingham last to make it feel special, but it’s more for comedic effect.

The question to ask is – What does my 31st year look like, and what are my plans?

It’s been a bit chaotic so far. There’s been lots of work travel, so I’ve been cramming in as many social events as possible in between. I’ve not had as much sleep as I would like. I’ve watched all 5 seasons of Brooklyn 99 on Netflix, and I love it a bit too much. I’m slowly learning JavaScript, slowly because I spend too much time watching shows on Netflix. I’ve been budgeting my money very well, but equally spending what I’ve saved almost too well – mainly on flights to Australia so far, but this girl does love to spend it up so stay tuned.

Much like last year really, apart from the work travel. It’s not as glamorous as people may think – I spend most of my time either at a hotel or the client site, with not much time to enjoy whichever city I’m in. I have enjoyed rating the quality of hotel breakfast scrambled eggs, though. Ratings so far are:

The best – Le Pain Quotidien, Paris

Close second – Hilton, Schiphol.

Not bad – Raddison Blu – Oslo

Awful – Premier Inn, Birmingham.

No surprises there then.

Loves xoxo