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Showing posts with label birthdays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthdays. Show all posts

Saturday, 21 January 2012

Birthdays, with beautiful things and added trepidation.

Posted on 19:10 by gaurav kumar
So, in nine days I will turn 26. I'm not really looking forward to it... it will signify the beginning of my 'late' twenties, the end of youth. The horror!


I am looking forward to the actual day though, my friend Fiona has kindly booked the day off work so we can spend the whole afternoon trawling the local charity shops, then in the evening Aerospace Boyfriend and I have a table booked at Bistro 1847, Manchester's swanky vegetarian and vegan restaurant where I went for a delectable meal just before Christmas with Miss Matilda, her fiancé and Old Fashioned Susie.

I was also thinking about having a party at home, but whereas I imagine my parties to look like this...


...the reality is it'd probably end like this...


...so I will probably just organise a trip to the Chinese buffet with a few friends like I do every year when I invariably leave my birthday plans to the last minute.


Mmm, buffet.

I've already received my presents from Aerospace boyfriend, look at my gorgeous little birthday chaps!


On the right is Herschel, I haven't got a name for the green and white fella yet.

So, onto the birthday dreaming... there's no way I'm getting any of these things, and I can't afford them myself, so do feel free to buy these things for yourselves to remove the temptation of my etsy watch list.

This vintage plus-sized stretchy knit dress from that purveyor of all things enviable Butch Wax Vintage... if her stock is that good, her personal wardrobe must be absolutely phenomenal!


I would team it with these chic 1950s black velvet or these delicious black satin stilettos (I want them both so much!), a mini beret and my black catseye sunglasses, then I would pretend to be a glamourous French spy, conducting lascivious affairs in order to extract top secret microfilms from the Russians.



Next something more cutesy... this rare pink lucite adorable swan brooch, and this useful vintage seahorses sweater guard, for holding cardigans oh-so-frivolously round the shoulders.



This one is sort of a necessity... I've now been going swimming (almost) every Wednesday evening for a year, swimming a mile each time, and my swimsuit is shot. It's a plain black tankini I got when I was eighteen but never wore, I took the tags off it last January and this January it is full of saggy, see-through patches where the chlorine has broken down the fibres. What I really want to replace it is one of these gorgeous swimsuits from For Luna, endorsed by the legendary MGM aqua-spectacular star Esther Williams whose engrossing autobiography I recently read.


The 'All For Eve' lipstick by Daniel sandler, which is vegan and supports research into women's cancers.


Miss L Fire Tahiti sandals, perfect for Summer, with a practical low wedge heel and in colours I actually wear!


These amazing Irregular Choice Chinese satin wedges... because you can never have enough glittery red shoes! Plus they fit in perfectly with my current Oriental obsession... I'd wear them with a devastating cheongsam and swan about covered in lotus blossoms.


Oh how I wish these adorable bastards were vegan, curse you Irregular Choice and your continued use of dead cow skins! I NEED red shoes with little plastic bluebirds all over them! Especially seeing as my feet have shrunk for no apparent reason, so I'm now a size five-ish instead of a six-ish.


My other big wish is a proper musical saw, I'm finding that I can make a lot of very exciting spooky noises on my vintage woodsaw, but it's proving impossible to coax a real tune from it. Aerospace boyfriend has a video on his phone to prove this... it features me doing a very tortured double-chinned violin face, and he insists on showing it to everybody.


...and that's about it for the things I desire but can't afford... that and everything on my Amazon wishlist.

Birthday shenanigans will no doubt be documented here in a couple of weeks, until then I shall continue to live in dread. Toodle pip!
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Posted in beautiful things, birthdays, dresses, shoes, Vintage | No comments

Sunday, 6 February 2011

Birthday Goodies!

Posted on 16:14 by gaurav kumar
Here are the marvellous thing I got for my birthday this year! I have some lovely friends <3



The shoes from my imaginary wardrobe overhaul post! I've wanted these Irregular Choice beauties for months and the wonderful Aerospace Boyfriend got them for me! They're on sale at Schuh stores and online now if you want to snap up a pair.





He also got me the gorgeous matching handbag. It's enormous, plenty of room for millions of Post Office receipts and old tissues.





The cute anchor bag charm above and the owl pearl bracelet below are from his sister, my friend Steff got me these yellow vintage necklaces which I love, and Paul gained even more brownie points by getting me this cherry bracelet to match a necklace I have, by Classic Hardware at Rockers England.





Pink cake slice moneybox from my friends Ciana and Steve...





Lovely books from Paul's mum...





Ceramics book and Dia De Los Muertos fabric panel from Steff...





Cupcake washbag from my friend Fiona...





...and lots of Lush goodies too! Mmm, perfumey.



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Posted in birthdays, books, shoes, Vintage | No comments

Birthday Buffet!

Posted on 15:56 by gaurav kumar
On Sunday 30th me and about twenty friends went for a meal at our favourite Chinese buffet (Shang Hi, Whitworth St., Manchester) for my 25th birthday (which was actually January 31st). Mmm! I wore my newly completed green dress...


Much tofu and crispy seaweed was consumed...



Novelty in-joke T-shirts were given and appreciated...



Babies were generally well behaved and lovely...




A lot of horrible gelatin-based ice cream was devoured...







And then I was presented with a cake that could take your eyebrows off!



Hurrahs!
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Posted in birthdays, chinese food, friends, restaurants | No comments

Wednesday, 21 July 2010

My new baby Neice, Vivien of Holloway and a Scary Birthday!

Posted on 11:39 by gaurav kumar
On July 11th, my sister Ginny gave birth to baby Elanor Paige, my first neice. Here she is! I am bemused by babies, as you can see.



July 11th was also the day Areospace Boyfriend turned 30! We spent the day together on our own, I got him lots of presents including DVDs and Star Wars collectibles, and made him a lovely three-course meal and birthday cupcakes to celebrate and allow him to hide from the rest of the world (he is not taking it well).

Here are the birthday cocktails I made!



Mmm, garish!



Slurp.



The umbrellas had absorbed quite a bit of flavour.

Our friend Ciana's birthday also fell during the same week, so we arranged a joint birthday party at The Hellfire Club, Manchester. The restaurant is horror-themed and we got the place to ourselves, as there were over twenty in our party. The food was lovely and the atmosphere was great, they also made me my own special vegan menu which consisted of some gorgeous spicy roasted peppers, a tasty mushroom and rosemary risotto, and an enormous exotic fruit salad.

Here is the birthday boy tucking into his prawn cocktail starter, stuffed into a huge pineapple! He then proceeded to eat a steak which was bigger than his face, and a sticky toffee pudding.



Here is Ciana looking lovely, and eight months pregnant, not that you can tell! (hat made by me, available here!)



We stayed there drinking for about five hours, as you can tell.



Our tables stretching off into the distance:




In the last picture you can see my lovely new dress, which was bought for me from Vivien of Holloway. My friend Kathy also has these in stock at Rockers England.


(Picture copyright Vivien of Holloway/Jazz Hans Photography/Anna Fur Laxis)
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Posted in babies, birthdays, Cocktails, food, Hellfire Club, restaurants, Vivien of Holloway | No comments
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gaurav kumar
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