As you may know, I’m 40 this year. I’ve decided to celebrate this event by having 40 birthdays. As it’s a difficult activity to have 40 parties – almost a month and a half if you have one every day – I’m starting now so I can get them under my belt.
My last monumental birthdays haven’t really been monumental. I can’t much remember what I was doing for them other than having a meal with my family. That’s pretty much the same thing I do for all my birthdays, so I wanted to do something a little spectacular.
Not only that, but my 30th birthday, I spent in bed wondering what I’d achieved with my 30 years. This time around, being 40 feels like something of an achievement just to be that old. 42 is the life expectancy in several countries across the world so to be 40 is something that a lot of people don’t even achieve.
The first of these parties is a beach party. I’ve never had a beach party on account of having a December birthday, so having a beach birthday was one on my list:
We went to St Palais Sur Mer, up the coast from Royan. Royan was my first holiday destination in France, and if I had all the money in the world, I’d live in one of the gothic mansions on the beach. Dinard, St Malo and Royan are my favourite seaside places. Royan itself is a busy harbour town with plenty of shops and restaurants. Damon and I were on the look-out for moules-frites, which was very easy to find, though it wasn’t easy to find something to suit everyone else. Unfortunately, if you don’t like seafood, fish, pizza, pasta, salad, risotto or meat in sauces, it’s harder to find other things. Jacob and Deb were left with a choice of entrecote or entrecote.
Damon very much enjoyed his moules-frites.
He finished the whole plate in record time. Then it was on to the ice-cream course. If you can’t have ice-cream on (one of) your birthdays, when can you?!
I opted for nougat and caramel. Damon had raspberry and chocolate.
He’s a boy after my own heart.
Finally, as all good birthdays should, it ended with fireworks. The St Palais fireworks festival is a competition between three countries. This year, they were doing fireworks set to cinema music. India won with a fabulous display of bright fireworks and Bollywood music. We got home at 3 am, but it was certainly a birthday party to remember!
Lady Justine's Blog 
Happy First 40th Birthday Party! Looking forward to seeing all this fun you’re going to have. That beach party sounds idyllic.
It really was a wonderful day. As Damon said ‘This has been my best day abroad’. I totally concur!
We are birthday partying in the orchard tomorrow – bbq smoked chicken, dolmades, pissaladiere, redcurrant and cassis ripple meringues, Vouvray. Happy unbirthday. I’ve never had a beach party either and I’m Australian, in my 50s, with a birthday in December. Presumably something wrong with me (actually not really that keen on the beach…).
That menu sounds utterly delightful! I love dolmades and the meringes sound wonderful too. Vouvray has to be one of my favourite wines! I think, living in the city, the beach is a place of escape for me, though.