let me fill you in...

...on what's been happening since I turned 18. There's been a lot of information, a lot of emotion, not as much alcohol as you might think. There's been a lot of presents.

Birthday Friday began at about 9am, when I was roused from bed with my mother's warcry: "Let's go shopping!" We went to H&M in Basingstoke where I obtained a white, 70s style waistcoat that goes incredibly well with my wellies and makes me look like my aunty Alice when she was my age and a raging hippy. I also purchased The Skirt. You'll be hearing more about The Skirt later.

As we were supping lattes in Cafe Nerro, the fire alarm went off. Wanna scare a shopping centre full of British people? Let off a fire alarm. The shopping populace unanimously decided that, to be on the safe side, they'd better leave, thus leading to a mass exodus of biblical proportions and very big queues at the very small doors.

And that, Stacey, is why I was 25 minutes late for my own birthday lunch. Sssh. Upon arriving at the pub, I was met by the lovely Sammy. "Sammy," I yelled, "it's my birthday!" Sammy looked from me to the man behind the bar (her boss) and back to me before crying "Oh my god, you're 19!" Apparently Sammy's been telling the barstaff at the White Lion that I've been 18 for weeks so I wouldn't getting in trouble. The fact that I've been drinking only fruit juice in there for years is irrelevant, it's the fact that she had my back that counts.

Stacey and Laura then presented me with an absolute haul of birthday gifts, a plethora of presents if you will, including a student cookbook, some Lush shower gel (Tramp flavour, arf arf) and a Mrs Goggins toy with MOVABLE LIMBS. I LOVE YOU STACEY. I was also given a bottle of real champagne from Liz's mum and Mike. Dudes. Absolute dudes.

Having lost my Jack Daniels and Coke virginity on the table at the White Lion and allowed Sammy to smear my chips in ketchup, onion chutney, mustard and cranberry sauce (I say 'allowed' - there was very little consent given on my part), I toddled home to play with my new toys.

Then my brother realised he hadn't bought me a present, so we went to Camberley, where I purchased a badge with '18' written on it. It's not my fault I don't have ID.

In Camberley, I got the first bit of information that led to my overload on Saturday night. A guy called Greg that I know from college was staying at the resort in Egypt that got bombed. His whole family are out there and nobody can get in touch with them. I'm frantically trying to remember everything I know about Greg, just in case. He has a big saloon car, he has ginger hair, he used to cut us up in the car park. I don't really know him at all, but I know that Liz and Jo would be gutted if something happened to him, so here's hoping.

After Camberley, I went home and did the whole 'I have new clothes and nothing to wear' thing, before going out to the George in Odiham for a meal with my entire English family. When I say English family, I mean the portion of my extended family that live in England. My mum's sister, Alice, her husband Ian (as English as they come) and my cousins Paul and Helen. Paul's girlfriend Katie, the other trainee vet in my life was there as well. Helen gave me life advice about university, such as "I know that the cheese and wine society sounds like a good idea but come October you'll be dead bored with it and then where's your subscription money?"

The George is a very nice restaurant. Shame I had to lower the tone. On the plus, I managed to drink wine for the first time since I got ill in Scotland. Not much, mind, but enough. I also had venison for the first time in my life. Bambi be damned, it tastes great.

Around this point, I recieved the second piece of information that stopped me in my tracks. To fill you in, we don't speak to my grandad. Not to air my dirty laundry in public, but we just haven't since I was about 8. I am used to this. Not ecstatic about it, but used to it. The only contact we have is that he sends us the local newspaper of the Orkney Isles, The Orcadian, every couple of weeks so that my mum can keep up on events in her homeland. For some reason, maybe the paper's gotten bigger, the amount of postage needed went up. We receieved a note from the Post Office informing us that we would have to pay the difference. The next issue was sent to us with the exact amount of postage.

How did he know that the Post Office had told us off? News, however mundane, travels fast in our family. So which member of our family told my grandfather that he needed more stamps? Somebody knows where he is. This changes everything.

*****

Birthday Saturday dawned not-so-bright-and-early with a luncheon invitation from Paul. We went out for a birthday KFC before heading back to his house to eat apple crisps, talk about Harry Potter in code and for me to be introduced to Jacob. Jacob is an inflatable play centre shaped like a dinosaur that Paul's girlfriend bought him for his birthday. Jacob makes an exceedingly good sofa. I curled up in Jacob's rubber bosom and Paul and I talked about the future, and who knows us best, and how people change, and how we don't feel grown-up enough to be doing this whole 'life' thing.

Then we walked up to Dani's house, cracked open the Birthday Champagne, realised that all we'd eaten that day were a couple of Mini Fillets and felt decidedly sleepy. Dani made me a toastie sandwich and I walked home in the rain to get ready to go out.

In classic style, I was late to dinner, tried and failed miserably to sneak in past a table full of people and pretend I'd been there since 7:30. Dinner was great. Chris gave me a coconut. It was far and away the best present I've ever had. I was incredibly touched that Emilie showed up (having just sat through an 11.5 hour flight from Mauritius and having been awake for almost 18 hours), looking even more black than when she left. Other highlights of the evening included Paul smearing pasta sauce on my face, the interesting experience of drinking Baileys coffee and Baileys on the rocks simultaneously and the most appallingly timed chorus of 'happy birthday to you' ever (sorry about that, Phil). Shocking information part three.

After a quick change of clothes whilst walking along the A30 (don't ever tell me I haven't got class), I legally entered the Agincourt for the first time in my life. I decided not to make a big deal of the fact that it was my birthday. It's kind of cheeky when you've been going to a club for several months.

I have to document the fact that I have never had so many of my favouritest people at the Ag before. Paul, Emilie and Taz came with from the restaurant, Stacey, Rob, Mike, Andy and Liz were already there along with, apparently, half of Farnborough 6th Form. And Liz's dad. And my friend Ollie who I haven't seen for a year. Oh yeah, and my ex-boyfriend. With a bag of my stuff that I left at his house when we were together. You know, the bag of stuff that says 'now we're DEFINITELY over'. Ouch. Information number 4. By this time, it was all getting a bit overwhelming. The craziness of the last two days was all very well but that stupid bag of socks, jewellery, my Trainspotting video and my dragon t-shirt was too much. There was too many people, too much stuff going on and too many conflicting emotions. So I did what I do best in that kind of situation. I got depressed. Martin gave me my present, a teddy of one of the crazy penguins from Madagascar and I actually cried.

I got home at 3, utterly burnt out, and put on the Soul Survivor live CD that Chris had given me. I listened to 'Whole World In His Hands' on repeat until I felt something more like normal, then went to sleep and had the weirdest dreams.

So what the hell was that? Was it a good birthday? Fuck yes. I couldn't have asked to turn 18 with a more fantastic bunch of people. I got emotional about that too, if you're wondering, about how much I love my mental, wonderful friends and how screwed I would be without them. So what's my philosophical conclusion for the night? That I will always have something to complain about. That I think too much, that I feel too much and that The Skirt and My Bitches are the only things in my life that I can be sure of.