Turn it up!

Last week was a landmark week: yes we finally hung our first bit of art on the wall (my sister-in-law's graphic painting, refer earlier post) and I turned 40. People keep asking me how it feels to be 40... and I have to say, pretty much the same as 39, 38 etc. Maybe even better. I haven't thrown a big birthday party for myself since I was 25 so this was a good excuse to throw open the doors and invite some of my nearest and dearest to come and celebrate.

Fortunately, Rob bought me a set of Numark turntables, a mixer with iPod docking station and a very loud amp and speaker combination for my birthday. (I'm ignoring the fact that the speakers are in "beech effect"). I went to Ikea to buy yet another grey metal cabinet (now on sale for £32!) which houses all my vinyl. I am thinking about shipping over another two crates of vinyl I have in storage in New Zealand - there are definitely some gems in there, but I have a habit of buying records for their covers so no doubt there'll be lots of doozies too.

I ended up with three friends who are also professional DJs at my birthday (and a few bedroom ones) and had democratic DJing till way after the sun came up (apologies to my very accommodating neighbours). The soundsystem kept feeding back as I'm told the pickups inside the cartridge heads don't like being so near the metal of the cabinets so we had to pad it out with towels - will find a rubber backed mat for next time. The good news is that despite ramming in fullsize Roulette and Blackjack tables upstairs in the TV room and filling the house with people, it never felt too crazy inside, the acoustics were great and there was plenty of room in the fridge for what seemed like unlimited booze.

One of our original goals for the house was to make it a social space for this kind of thing and it sure beats hanging out in a sleazy bar with dubious punters and unpredictable music. Oh dear, I really have gotten old...