Birthday Celebrations (Part 1) – Featuring Lots of Cake

This week will be my birthday, and I celebrated with friends on a very sunny Saturday evening in Manchester, eating cake, drinking wine and cocktails and having chats and giggles. Warning – there are some explicit cake shots in this post!

My outfit was chosen with the weather in mind, and I went for a pair of cobalt blue scallop edge shorts, barely seen under a sheer long blouse. I also wore my bejewelled collar necklace which I received for my birthday last year. It’s surprisingly difficult to pair this necklace with appropriate tops – there are neckline issues – but a collarless shirt is (unsurprisingly) one of the styles that works best.

Shirt from Dunnes; scallop edge shorts from Simply Be; Collar necklace from ASOS; boots from Carvela; clutch from ASOS; lipstick in hot pink by Bobbi Brown

I also attempted a fishtail braid for the first time. I’m not going to lie; this is no easy task when you have layers in your hair, and even after watching online tutorials as guidance this took three tries before I had something fairly successful. I do like the final effect though.

And now onto the food porn… Our destination was Home Sweet Home in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, which has cute homely décor and an American-themed menu full of hearty delights (including some tasty sweet potato fries and a very popular pulled pork pile up), as well as a very delicious selection of cakes and desserts, including doughnut butter pudding. Add wine and cocktail pitchers and it’s a fab place to start a night.

It’s the giant cookie cake for me (the birthday princess)

Not just a cake, but also a big pile of biscuits! I had to admit defeat about 3/4 of the way through this one!

And this is the doughnut butter pudding, ordered by one of my friends. Yum!