Twenty Three

With Saturday being my birthday and also the day I flew to Amsterdam, my family and I decided to go out for a little pre-birthday lunch on God Friday. I'd wanted to go to The Ash Tearoom for ages but we'd never been able to find a good time. It used to be a pub but now it's a gorgeous little tearoom with a cake shop and a chocolate shop inside. The cake shop is amazing. They make the most amazing cakes and we've had a couple over the years for birthdays and special occasions- I had a treble clef for my 18th birthday, a suitcase with an American flag on for my leaving party, my Mum had a makeup bag for her 50th and I had a converse shoe for my 16th. My Dad and I went for a wander after ordering our food and we mooched around the cake shop looking at the amazing cakes, and ended up chatting to the ladies about some of the cakes they had made for us in the past. They remembered all of them and said some of them might be in the portfolio. After some hunting we found a picture of my 16th birthday cake! 

For lunch we had creamy mushrooms (Mum), homemade quiche (me), a club sandwich (Nan) and baked potato (Dad), but of course, we were most excited about the cakes! With it still being lent, I had to avoid anything chocolately and went for my favourite non-chocolate pudding, lemon cake. My Mum got the carrot cake, and my Dad had the most gorgeous-looking strawberry tart.

I still have all my photos and stories from Amsterdam to show you, but I will share my presents with you. I did exceptionally well this year! A Tamron wide-angle lens, a Ted Baker purse, a Cath Kidson makeup bag, another Jones and Jones dress (yep, the same as my cream one, my red one and my black one but in yellow!), a MAC makeup brush, and a University of Birmingham teddy bear from my parents. I also got some nude boots from my Auntie and some Lush goodies from Ellen. My birthday was absolutely lovely and even better that I spent half of it in Amsterdam. I'm excited to be 23. I know it's a cliche, but I feel like 23 is going to be a good year. 22 was tough with finishing my degree, losing my nana, working abroad and searching for a job, but I love my job, love my friends and I'm excited to have a year of things just staying the same and focusing on myself. 23 feels like an age to start growing up and I definitely feel like I am growing up. It was also very weird to write the title of this post- there is an old post on this blog somewhere called Turning Twenty! I did actually write a "before 23" list last year but didn't seriously finishing writing it, however when I reviewed it around Christmastime I'd actually done alright on it! With the plan to keep things the same in a lot of ways in terms of my job and well, geography, I might write another one for before I'm 24.

I'm excited to tell you all about my trip to Amsterdam later in the week!

Charlotte x