Birthday Weekend

Last Thursday I turned the grand old age of 26. To be honest the best birthday present I got was getting to come home early from two weeks in Shetland the day before. I have missed my home comforts, family, friends, the cats and Pete so much. I’ll save my Shetland adventures for another post, but for now here’s a wee birthday run down (and thanks to everyone for all your love and well wishes on instagram, twitter etc!)

I was working all day Thursday, which felt like such a shame considering how awesome the weather was. Felt like a mini heatwave when my plane touched down in Glasgow. I had been craving Dominos pizza for weeks (that BBQ base tho) so that’s exactly what we had on my birthday eve. Followed by present opening, then I went for a bubble bath and Pete came through mid soak with a giant jammy dodger birthday cake. I have a jammy dodger tattooed on my arm, so this made me smile a lot. Since my birthday was on a week day, and I had work on the Friday too, we extended the celebrations into the weekend. Movies and wine on Friday night, then on Saturday we took a drive over to my Mums so I could catch up with all my family. I ate my body weight in sandwiches and cake, and my Mum bought me a pink hetty hoover! I’m bloody over the moon – I have wanted one forever, but at what age can you really buy yourself a hoover… Oh well, Mammy did the honors for me! Haha.

On Saturday afternoon Pete and I took the train into town and checked into Citizen M. This fairly new hotel situated at the top of Hope Street (next to The Conservatoire – my old uni!) boasts affordable luxury, and I can’t deny it is one of the coolest and most arty hotels I have ever stayed in. Cool and arty without even trying too hard.

The lighting, temperature, blinds, and TV in the room are all controlled via ipad. Safe to say I didn’t get near it and Pete was controlling this gadget from check in to check out. You can tweak all the settings to suit your mood, which was really relaxing and comforting in comparison to a lot of other hotels I’ve stayed in. It was actually a complete breath of fresh air after staying in two pretty old fashioned hotels in Shetland.

Citizen M gave us a late check out since they knew I was there for my birthday, which I thought was a lovely little touch. Before getting ready to head out for the night, we lazed about on that massive comfy bed (I need one for my own house plz) and watched the new Dumb and Dumber film on the big HD TV. I was so cozy and there were so many new films on that telly, it almost made me not wanna go out for the night! Alas, steaks were calling. We got ready and headed down to Grill On The Corner for dinner.

Here’s me feeling awfully fancy in my new Vivienne Westwood dress, which I got from Repertoire Fashion. They had so many nice designer dresses in the sale, it was super hard to pick one! It’s a rather slinky number, and I’ll feel more comfortable wearing it again once I’ve lost a few lbs. My red dress matched the red theme and logo of the hotel, which was a total coincidence but very fitting. After dinner and cocktails at the Grill On The Corner, we went to Tiki Bar for some more cocktails, then back to the hotel bar for one before retiring to bed.

I was pleased to hear that there’s a Citizen M in loads of other cities across the world. I would definitely stay in one again, and recommend this one to anyone coming to visit Glasgow for the weekend. It’s in the perfect location if you were here for a night out or some shopping and general sightseeing. It seemed pretty busy when we were there, and the lady on check in said that a lot of people book it when coming through for the West End Festival as it’s just a 5 minute walk from the subway to the west end. It was pretty strange feeling like a tourist in my own city for the night, but so lovely to have an evening away from home and no cats nibbling on your toes at 4am. One thing I did not miss when I was away with work! Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day too, and I wanted to head along to the west end for a bit to try and catch one of the shows or events which are on, but we had an afternoon date at my Dad’s so had to head home around 2ish. It’s on until the 28th of June though so hopefully see something next weekend! Really hope that this sunny weather stays with us a little bit longer. We got brunch and a coffee from Riverhill Coffee Bar, which was delicious and I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to visit. I had never been to the Grill On The Corner either despite it being there for years now, so it was definitely a weekend of embracing my city and trying out new places. Our afternoon visit to my Dad’s consisted of tea, cake and more pressies sitting out in the garden, and come Sunday night I was totally knackered. Managed to unpack my suitcase finally from the week before, and settle down for the night before another busy week of work. And hey, three birthday cakes and lots of laughs later, turning 26 ain’t so bad after all.