22

Although my party is next weekend, yesterday was my actual birthday.  It feels so odd to be 22 - I know that 21 is meant to signify becoming a 'proper grownup' but it didn't seem like that for me at the time as I still had a whole year of university ahead of me. Now that I've turned 22 and I'm about to graduate, I feel like I've crossed the boundary from the 18-21 'student' age-group into scary adulthood!

Despite this newfound fear of responsibility, I still had a lovely day, starting off with breakfast in bed as made by Tetley!

Tetley told me that this year, he attempted to include every single one of my interests in his set of presents, resulting in a somewhat bizarre selection.  We have the Game of Thrones cookbook (love!) to cover my enjoyment of both Game of Thrones and food; a book about Corbin Bleu to cover my 'love' of High School Musical (which is actually more of an inside joke as that book has been in our local Home Bargains store for about 4 years and we were starting to feel sorry for it); Legend of the Guardians in reference to my love of owls; War Horse as fuel for my love of Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch; Watership Down which is really a horrible present as Tetley has never seen that movie but I've often told him how traumatising it is; everyone's favourite Star Wars character, Grand Moff Tarkin; a cute little Tintin Beanie Baby and a Russian knockoff of My Little Pony!

I came to appreciate the Corbin Bleu book a lot more after coming across this fantastic image.

We spent the afternoon having lunch with friends and then going to Abertay University's Degree Show.  All of us except Tetley and Ruaridh coincidentially wore bright coloured trousers/tights - this photo is clearly destined to be the cover of our debut album.

Laura made me this awesome Love Owl cake!

Love Owl cutting the cake version of himself...

We spent the evening playing games and watching cartoons - as I may have already mentioned, I am a 22 year old with the interests of a child!  Our homemade Jenga drinking game made an appearance too.  All of the blocks have a number written on them and each number corresponds to a drinking rule or a challenge written in my notebook.  This time there was the added danger of having to do a shot of Tetley's 80% chilli schnapps if you knocked the tower over, which made the game ridiculously tense!

As much as I enjoy having a party on my birthday, I think I probably prefer more casual birthdays like this one with just a few close friends and no pressure to be a great host.  As Tetley tells me though, having my party on the weekend following my birthday also means that my birthday gets to last for a week, and that can surely only be a good thing! ;)

Faye
xxx