Putting On The Ritz

So, you really know who your friends are when they surprise you with a night at The Ritz and a champagne-fuelled party at Crazy Horse for your birthday...

To say that my 26th celebrations started off with a bang is like saying Guy Fawkes only envisaged a couple of sparks or that Petronious organised chaste little parties. My pre-actual birth date night was an all guns blazing, seriously saucy event!

Coerced into going down to London under the premise that The Housemate needed me to host an event of hers, I scrounged a couple of hours off work from The Polo Magazine to hot foot it down the M4. "Park up your car and meet me by Green Park Tube," says The Housemate. 

A quick motorway gas station stop for a wardrobe change – thankfully into a little black dress and a vintage fur – and I trot down Albemarle Street and pop up in front of The Ritz. "We're just going down here..." And then The Housemate leads me through the polished revolving doors and into the unique splendour that can only be the most iconic hotel in the world. Keep your new sky scrapers and the latest bling-tastic places to lay your head, The Ritz has just got It. In spades. Golden ones, with workers in polished-button uniforms manning them. GAHHHHHH. 

Spiriting up to our room for the evening – yes we were staying there – I was greeted with cake, cards and a girlfriend leaping out of the bathroom to surprise me. Plastering on the eyeliner – which is very difficult when you're jumping up and down with excitement – we then made our way back downstairs for drinks... and yet more surprises as lots of beautiful faces belonging to my girlfriends in London rocked up. All organised by The Housemate. Crystal glasses of Louis Roederer, more cake and a martini with a twist later and present number two was pushed into my hands. I know, how could there be MORE?? 

As if the evening wasn't glamorous enough, I then opened tickets to catch Kelly Brook and the Crazy Horse girls in cabaret at the South Bank. Almost to the day, my girls and I had been in Paris celebrating my 25th and watching these Parisian beauties shake their asymmetric wigs and their regimented boobs at their Club round the back of the Plaza Athenee in gay Paree – and now we were off to see them by the Thames. 

More champagne was a perfect whet of the palette to keep us all in fine whooping voice whilst the Crazy Horse girls flashed their Louboutins at us during an amazing show. If you haven't seen them yet, cross your fingers and hope you can still get tickets. Try here. 

Two hours, four bottles and a definite commitment to our gym membership later we hopped into cabs to hit the dance floor at Mahiki. (NB: If you say it's your birthday and smile a great deal you seem to get in free EVERYWHERE...)

Because we are all committed career girls, we were very civilised and made it home before 2am. However much I love to dance, the thought of my head hitting The Ritz pillow was too good to turn down, even if Rhiana was blaring out a big tune. 

Waking up in a fluffy Ritz dressing gown and popping next door for breakfast at The Wolseley isn't just how every birthday should begin... it's how my Wednesday/Thursday should begin ALWAYS. I know I would never tire of it. 

Thank you lovely girls, especially The Housemate for organising an evening I will never, ever forget. 

When the Crazy Horse girls come to London, we don't just go crazy. We go VERY crazy. X

Credit where credit's due: The Ritz & Crazy Horse

PS: I hasten to add that there are none of our own pictures on this post as we were too busy living the moment to capture it on camera... that and the fact that the surprise meant I was without my point n shoot...