Heather's birthday

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Yes, my favourite friend turned 24 yesterday - (hurrah, she has caught me up a year).
We started off the celebrations the night before, ready for midnight. Heather, Emily, Mike, Clare, Oli, Libby and Dean had a wine and cheese night (for me it was Twix and Coke!). Libby, Dean, Rachel, Katie and I decided to sneak off into the room to go play cards and leave the others sitting outside, so we could take the opportunity to blow up balloons and hang up a birthday banner. It was going well until some of the balloons burst, making us all scream and surely give things away!

We managed to keep Heather out of the room until midnight with a ton of lies about how Dean had been to the toilet and nobody should now go in there (sorry Dean!). The balloons were all over Heather's bed - I admit I didn't think she'd actually sleep there but she's obviously more hardcore than I thought!

Anyway...she knew we were going to chuck her in the pool at midnight, so she threw herself in at 11.40 before we had the chance! Haha! In the end, some of the others joined her until the security guy came along and chucked them out, with 5 mins to go before midnight! But we managed to convince him to let us stay out until midnight and then we'd go into our room. So, at midnight, we made an archway for Heather and sung happy birthday to her whilst she went into the room - she looked a little bemused at this point but hey ho, it's her birthday so who cares how cheesy it is, lol. She laughed when she saw the balloons, and we all had photos taken etc - and then everyone crashed out.

The next day was Heather's PROPER birthday, lol, so she opened her cards from home in the morning, and it was a pretty normal day, lazing by the pool etc. When Rachel got back from work about 2.30pm, we put candles on the 3 birthday cakes (2 cheesecakes from us, and a cream cake with fresh fruit from Libby and Dean) and again, embarrassed her as we brought them out of the kitchen whilst singing happy birthday very loudly and badly haha! It descended into a cake fight at the end, lol, with Heather having her face shoved into the cake!

We were due on our sunset cruise for 5pm, so we got to the harbour and checked in for our boat, the Cape Adieau. We had a great table, all 7 of us upstairs on the top deck, right in the centre, with 2 other smaller groups who were just squished to the side, haha. We started off with dips and flatbreads (yummy!) and then the fish came out - it was smoked mackarel, huge banana prawns and oysters. I nearly gagged on the oysters, but the banana prawns were yummy with thousand island dressing - just have to learn a way to not get prawn all over my white trousers next time! The main course was steak, salad, potato salad, coleslaw etc, followed by red fin salmon. Really was fantastic food! Eating for 3 hours solid - great!!! I gave her my presents after the main course, as the sun had set and we had just sat and watched it whilst eating. I gave Heather a photo frame with photos, a top and some chocolate. Katie and Rachel got her a purse and a friendship bracelet and they gave her it then too. Dessert was last - french cheesecake - yummy!!! The last 45 mins was spent just chatting and chilling and enjoying the red skies.

When we got back to the hostel, Emily, Clare, Oli and Mike gave Heather their present, which was a Saddle club gift bag. Some of them went to the bar for a bit to play pool, but it wasn't a late night, everyone was too exhausted!

I hope Heather had a good day - I think she did. :o)

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