Happy birthday to me! (As of the 9th, that is...)

Hurrah! I like birthdays.

As I am in the Northern Hemisphere, I wasn't suprised to find it raining when I woke up. Sadly, this breaks the record for me never having bad weather on any birthday I remember... But, it was almost snowing so that was a good trade off.

I spent a very leisurely morning opening my presents, and was utterly spoiled. I note a distinctive NZ feel to my gifts, and was particularly touched by the following contemporary pottery from my parents:


However, it didn't make me cry. Not even for a second. No matter what you may have heard.

Being a very grown-up 29, I had decided to celebrate my day by 'doing' the slides at the Tate Modern. The slides are an installation by a German guy called Carsten Holler and propose some very cool ideas... Essentially, how does our perception change when we are in motion? And, what would London be like if we travelled by slides instead of car, bus and Tube? You can read more about the exhibition here.

Luckily, the idea of throwing one's self down a five-storey high plastic chute appealed to enough other grown-ups to make for quite a fun night...

I thought it best to have a few drinks first, especially as the Tate has a very glamorous bar overlooking the river. Preliminary drinkies also seemed the perfect opportunity to introduce some of the London friends I have known in NZ to some of the friends I have made since I got here, and to introduce Lucy to all of them. Needless to say, everyone found everyone just lovely.

I thought it best to capture the moment with the fancy timer thing on my camera, but I am not quite sure what went wrong. Maybe, given we were in the Tate, my camera felt it neccesary to provide me with my own bit of Modern Photographic Art?:


And here's our view:


Anyway, the ten of us sat drinking wine and looking out over the Thames to a beautifully lit up Millenium Bridge and St Pauls Cathedral for a good three hours. It really was divine, and amazing how quickly time flew. Shortly enough, it was time to slip off to the slides.

They look fantastic lit up in the dark and cavernous lobby:


Posters line the approach to the slide warning riders that 'the experience is physical', so I wasn't sure what to expect. Fortunately, it was fun and fast but entirely manageable. It was so good I found myself sweet-talking the attendant into letting me have extra rides, including the last one before the museum shut for the evening.

Being well past ten o'clock by then, our hungry group eagerly wandered along Southbank for pizza and more wine in another restaurant with gorgeous views. Yummy all round.

From there, the die-hard party girls (yep, that even included me!) headed to G-A-Y in Soho. We put up with half an hour of terrible Belinda Carlisle remixes, a £10 bill for checking our coats and rather disgusting men groping the more naive amongst us in exchange for three hours of utterly excellent retro music. Did someone say Mel 'n Kim? Woo hoo!

The flatties and I stumbled in at half past four. Excellent!