I am 25 years old. 25 whole years (and two days) and for the first time ever I've had a November birthday in the sunshine. Proper sunshine as well, not the 'it's sunny outside but freezing at the same time so wear eight layers' type of sun, just glorious glorious weather. Apologies to all those back home who are suffering the horrendous November temperatures that I'm used to but you'll forgive me, it was my birthday! The last few days have been really amazing - as well as my birthday I attended a Goan wedding which was absolutely beautiful and an experience I'll never forget. I met Gazelle, a lovely Goan woman, in a bar last week - she knows my mum (so we were introduced) but we immediately hit it off and within an hour she invited me to one of her best friend's wedding that she'd been helping to organise. I can recall so many drunken occasions where invites are extended to all kinds of things and then forgotten as soon as sobriety kicks in - this was not the case here. She reconfirmed on Thursday and arranged to collect me - I was so excited but had absolutely no idea what was expected of me: what to wear, what to bring etc. Gazelle cleared this up for me immediately - dress NICE with heels being a definite must, bring nothing except myself. I bought myself a new skirt from our fashion designer friend Erica earlier in the day and was dressed up and ready for my 8pm ride to the reception. I have to admit, walking into a wedding in the middle of the toasts without anyone noticing you is tricky. Despite being there with the bride's best friend, I was still very much a wedding crasher to their beautiful do, luckily I wasn't the only one and we met the other 'crashers' in the crowd. This included Joy, an awesome American woman I'd also met the week before, so at least I knew two people there! The wedding reception really was so beautiful, the colours were apple green and lemon yellow (even the bridesmaids dresses!) and the effort that had gone into creating such a spectacular scene was astounding - it helped having the inside knowledge of all the behind the scenes work from Gazelle as she'd been involved in most of it! There must have been over two hundred guests and they wanted for nothing: open bar, fabulous food, live band, what more could you want?! Gazelle introduced me to the bride and groom after they had their first dance (they danced whilst the bride sang to her groom - honestly I was nearly in tears it was so sweet!) - Paloma and Geoffrey, married on 11.11.11, engaged on Valentine's Day and one of the most in love couples I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. I was nervous about being one of the 'uninvited' but they couldn't have been more welcoming and were so pleased that I'd come which definitely put me more at ease! I met some more of Gazelle's friends, most of which live in Dubai now, and a lovely girl named Raj who had a fantastic camera and was luckily more snap happy than me! (That being said, her photos may be less flattering than mine, she was taking pictures long after my camera was put away!!). The time came for all the single girls to hit the dance floor ready for the throwing of the bouquet. I have to admit that I love this part, it's a wedding tradition that I really like, and as we all crowded together (I'd say there were about thirty of us?) I felt my competitive nature kick in and prepared myself for Paloma's throw. She threw it.....I ran forward....and guess who caught the bouquet! If I were less honest I'd describe the scramble of women, the grabbing and fighting to claim such a prize, but that's not exactly what happened. As Gazelle explained later, in Goa, none of the girls even want to catch it. Catching the bouquet means that parents start looking for prospective husbands! Paloma threw it, I ran forward and EVERY OTHER GIRL took three steps back to avoid it going anywhere near them! So I was victorious, I did catch the bouquet but I was really only competing against myself. Still, I've never caught a bouquet at a wedding before and it really involved me in the proceedings as I then had to be introduced to the entire wedding - my role as anonymous guest was no longer acceptable, everyone needed to know the name of the girl that put herself in the middle of the wedding by catching the bloody bouquet!

The rest of the wedding went by in a blur - the bride and groom carried out all sorts of traditions (being blindfolded and having to find each other on the dance floor, the removal of her garter with his teeth, the bridal march through all the guests) and it felt wonderful to be allowed to witness such a special and intimate event, especially as I'd only met Gazelle a week previously and only met the bride and groom a few hours before. The wedding was coming to a close, it was nearing midnight and I remembered that in a few minutes I'd turn 25. This revelation to the girls resulted in toasts for my birthday, a downing of drinks and the decision to go dancing for the rest of the night. I'll admit, I thought we'd be wedding celebrating and then going home, not hitting Tito's road (the main street in Baga filled with bars and clubs) but go with the flow is the mantra I'm trying to follow so go with the flow I did. Or more specifically I went on the bike with Gazelle, bouquet in hand and held aloft as we drove through Calangute for everyone to see (I'm cringing at the memory even as I write this down! lol). We parked the bike, I made the very complicated decision to leave the bouquet attached to the scooter (it seemed an impossible decision at the time) and headed off into the chaos that is Tito's road on a Friday night. Now Gazelle is Goan, she works with the Saturday markets, she knows EVERYONE and this certainly has its benefits when it comes to having a good night out. Within minutes of us entering Kamacki's bar we were talking to the dj and he announced my 25th birthday to the entire bar. I didn't buy any drinks after that - every time my hand was empty another person would come up to me and say "birthday girl, what're you drinking?" This resulted in LOTS of dancing (you can't beat air conditioned dance floors in clubs here), shots of tequila with the dj and me singing Hot Chocolate's 'You Sexy Thing' to the entire bar. For those of you who've heard me sing, I know you're cringing right now. Perhaps all the people I was with were hammered too but I got a round of applause and was asked to do another (which thankfully for everyone I refused) so I can't have been that bad! We danced for hours and at 5am I decided that I must go home then or I never would - these bars are open until 9/10am in the morning so leaving whilst it was still dark was certainly a positive I thought - so I said my goodbyes and fell into bed at 5:15am. Back home, I always have a party so missing out on that this year was something I wasn't looking forward to but I really did have an awesome night, especially as it was so unexpected. The only birthday night out I've ever had with people I've known less than a week and it was A M A Z I N G.

Four hours sleep later and I was awake with the now five year old Jody wishing me a happy birthday. (I've mentioned her before, she the daughter of our friends Tina and Popai). It was her birthday too and in just a few hours time, we were all heading to her birthday party extravaganza. A children's birthday party is not typically the ideal thing to attend after a massive night out but my head was surprisingly intact and we dolled ourselves up, headed over with the birthday girl in tow and arrived at her party complete with balloons, bouncy castle and a Barbie birthday cake. A proper princess party for a very girly girl. A quick bounce on the castle made me realise I wasn't quite 100% but a lot of iced water later seemed to fix it and I just sat back and enjoyed a relaxing day at the adult end of the party. Later on, we celebrated my birthday with a beautiful Chinese meal (complete with duck pancakes and margaritas) and were in bed by 1am - so rock and roll!

After such a heavy couple of days, a day at the beach was a must so we headed down to Popai's shack on Baga beach on the Sunday. I can now say without doubt that there is no better place to recover from a mad weekend than on a beach with a swim in the sea at four in the afternoon. It was absolute heaven and the perfect way to finish off my birthday weekend. To sum up my birthday, I ate some lovely food, drank lots of lovely drinks (too many probably), opened cards and presents (the best envelope has to be from my Grandma, I brought it in my suitcase but it said on it 'For Rebecca Sutcliffe, c/o Goa, India' brilliant), danced until I could no longer stand, embarrassed myself an appropriate amount for a birthday girl (remember the singing?) and best of all I didn't cry once. Turning 25 wasn't so bad after all!