sixteen

Hey,

So on Tuesday, I turned sixteen years old. The night before I found it really difficult to sleep as I was just so excited. However, I eventually slept, and was awoken to the sounds of ‘happy birthday, Megan!’ being sung to me at ten to seven in the morning by my brother, mum and baby sister. A quick round of hugs and I went downstairs.

For birthday breakfast, I had chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate in it (made by mum’s friend, Ellie!). I decided to scrap my healthy eating for a few days and resume the week after. It was delicious, and definitely tasted better than muesli.

I agreed i’d open birthday presents later in the evening with all of my family present, so I opened my cards from family. The cards were very sweet – I even ended up with sixty five pounds to spend. I took this money into Worthing town to spend with my friends later in the day.

As my brother had to go to school, the birthday morning was short lived.However come twenty past ten, I set out to the local park to meet my friend, and we then ventured to lancing train station together, chatting on the way.

Soon, we reached the train station. By this point, we were boiling due to the extremely hot weather – I didn’t really mind though. I was too ‘it’s my birthday!’ed up to care. Two of my friends were there already. After some hugs were exchanged and presents opened, we waited for everyone else in our group to arrive, and then got onto the train.

By the time we were off of the train, He was already at our meeting point (KFC) so he was getting a little impatient. We all hurried to the destination and tried to soak up as much of the sun as we could on our way.

Eventually, we reached KFC and headed inside for some lunch. I ordered a snack box, a Krushem and a cold drink. The people at the till were hugely unorganized so they messed up the orders of a few of my friends several times – this meant we all ended up eating and finishing our meals at different times. We didn’t mind though.

After KFC, we headed to the beach. The night before, He had messaged Pewdiepie (famous Youtuber) asking to meet at the pier for my birthday. While he never replied, it showed he viewed the message twice, meaning there was a chance he’d show. We figured we’d take that chance.

After a while, it became evident he wasn’t going to turn up… but we weren’t too disheartened. Instead, we decided to ditch the beach, and headed to the arcade on the pier for a bit of fun. We managed to break one claw grabbing machine that stated you were guaranteed to win a prize on somehow. Even though technically only three people paid for a go, all eight of us ended up with teddies from this game.

After this, we decided we were hungry again so we headed to the local pick and mix shop and got a pint of sweets to devour each. Mine was mostly filled with Haribo strawbs, white chocolatey treats and jelly beans. The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring shops, buying books and clothes and goofing off around town with a whole bunch of friends.

At two thirty I got a text from my Mum telling me that He and I had to head back to her work shop so she could give us a lift to my house to kill time before we went to my Nan”s. He and I were slightly late due to how hot it was, how far away from the station we were and the fact that His side had started hurting so he had to sit down. When we eventually reached Mum’s work, I don’t think i’d ever seen her so angry.

Apparently even though we were only ten minutes late we had screwed up her entire afternoon – she was late to pick up my sister so my sisters dad had to drop her off at our home (so we inconvenienced him), she had been sweating due to the extreme heat and just the general fact that we were late all combined into one huge rant at both he and I.

I don’t know… I didn’t expect to be so seriously yelled at over what, in retrospect, really wasn’t that big an issue. ESPECIALLY, on my birthday. I felt tears threatening to escape so I just stared out of the window and desperately wished I was somewhere else for most of the journey to pick my brother up from school. I probably wouldn’t have cried if I hadn’t spoken… but when my Mum then asked my why I looked like I was about to cry my voice cracked and completely betrayed me. Cue the waterworks.

So, how was your birthday? I cried on my sixteenth birthday. Great memory there. I’d never cried in front of him either, so that was embarrassing. Mum must have realised I was genuinely crying because she then starts apologising for the yelling and hugs me, all while i’m still crying.

My brother eventually comes out of school and it’s almost like nothing happened. The crying isn’t mentioned the rest of the day.

We get home and I dump my bags of presents and things I bought in my room. He and I then sit on my sofa and just hug for a bit until my sister comes home, then we’re stuck with babysitting duty until it’s time to leave for my nan’s. It was a bit awkward.

The car ride over to nan’s was ten times more pleasant than the drive home – my sister provided entertainment by singing ‘happy birthday’ on loop, the heat wasn’t quite so intense, my brother was talking about his game and I was filled with the same ‘oh my goodness it’s my birthday’ euphoria I had earlier in the day.

I had been given strict instructions earlier in the day by my Nan that I A) wasn’t allowed to come into the house via the back door like we normally do as it was locked and instead that we had to use the front door, and B) That I had to be the first person at the front door when it opened. This made me slightly nervous but when the door was opened, a giant bouquet of the most beautiful flowers i’d ever been given was thrusted into my hands by my Nan.

After ‘happy birthday’s were exchanged and flowers were placed in a vase, I was told to sit in the living room until everything was set up. A few minutes later, I was allowed to walk through the kitchen and outside into the garden and honestly my family out did themselves. The entire thing was planed by my nan, aunt and uncle and the Afternoon Tea set up was super fancy with hand picked flowers from the garden, a table cloth, a candelabra, tealights, fairy lights, mini mugs for tea coupled with tiny plates and silver knives and forks. Everyone even had a seating plan, with the names of the person written on little cards. Mine said ‘Miss Megan Stapleton’. There was even music playing on a stereo that was balanced precariously on the top of an open window – i’d been asked to compile a playlist of my favourite songs but I wasn’t allowed to know what for.

Mini menus were laid out on the table – first meal was finger sandwiches, second was home made scones with jam and clotted cream, and the last course was a selection of cakes and biscuits such as a Victoria sponge cake, macarons and the cutest cupcakes i’ve every seen! During the meal, the music was changed to what I can only describe as typical ‘restaurant’ chill out music that put everyone at ease. Each course was delivered and tidied away by my nan and aunt while the rest of us were told to sit down. Drinks were also refilled regularly – you had the choice of normal tea, ‘posh tea’, pink lemonade, cloudy lemonade, water and juice. Every thing I ate was delicious, displayed beautifully and every meal was filled with happy chatter of family.

He was seated next to my Dad but they seemed to get along pretty well and were even talking by the end of the evening. In between meals, I played various games of ‘it’ with my sister, brother and Him, posed for pictures and watched the fish with my baby sister. It was a really fun evening that i’d have loved even without the presents.

After the meal and once picture posing was officially over, it was time to open presents from everyone. The highlights of the presents included an owl pillow, an assortment of books, skinny jeans, money, an owl flask, and…. TICKETS TO GO SEE WICKED LIVE WITH MY MUM, NAN AND AUNT! I’M SO EXCITED! It was a joint present with my mum as our birthdays are so close together (mine is exactly two weeks after hers) and we opened our very flat presents together. The tickets were in a black card with ‘Wicked’ and ‘Admits one’ written on it. We go see it November the 8th – i’m so excited! Going to see Wicked has been on my bucket list for years and I can finally go. Apparently we’re gonna go have a meal afterwards too.

I’m so excited.

The rest of the evening was spent chatting, playing silly games, posing for even more pictures and eating what was left of the food. He ended up getting a lift home with my dad (where he admitted he never knew I had a thing for owls apparently!)

All in all, my day was amazing. While some parts were definitely better than others, I spent the day with my favourite people doing something fun and different.

My birthday presents from him were given to me on the 24th of July at his house. From him, I received two charms (one with an owl in a graduation hat for graduating and one silver oval shaped charm with blue stars to represent the date we had to go see The Fault in Our Stars.), an owl backpack, a phone case and an owl money pot. His parents gave me a book mark (coincidently, with owls on it) and a notepad (also had owls on it).

I feel there was a definite owl theme going on with my birthday.

While it wasn’t the ‘typical’ birthday party a sixteen year old has – no big party, no getting drunk or anything like that, and it certain;y wasn’t the trip to London i’d originally hope for I still think it was pretty perfect.

The rest of the day at his house was spent watching the movies Beetlejuice, Ghost Busters and A Knights Tale. For dinner we had breads, cheeses, pate and veg for dinner – it was a sort of serve yourself thing that was delicious and actually pretty fun. It was a good, relaxing evening that concluded the end of my birthday.

I have NCS soon (National Citizens Service). I went to a meet up on the 23rd to meet my official group and decide what we were going to do with 150 pounds for a bonding activity…before our bonding activity. The traffic was so awful that I ended turning up an hour and a half later than it started (whoops) even though we left with fifteen minutes to spare. Luckily the people were really friendly and didn’t mind.

With 150 pounds, fifteen teenagers decided to spend it doing… a picnic with a water fight. Yup. It sounds dorky… and like these are the people I want to hang out with. We’re going to meet up at ASDA, go pick food to eat at our picnic with 150 pounds, get some water pistols and then go enjoy ourselves. It should be fun. I was expecting something adventurous like paint balling or lazer tag.. nope, picnic was voted for the most. Not that i mind, it should be fun.

Less than a month until I get my GCSE results… aaaah.

My dad has moved to a new house in Selsey! I’ve not actually been yet but i’ve seen it in pictures. It looks really pretty! Could definitely use some work though.

Lots is happening soon – going away for ncs, gcse results, Wicked, going to go see Caro Emerald live… I can’t wait!

Until next time!