Will Johnston: An expected surprise

Mount Maunganui

If you've ever been involved in organising a big surprise for someone you love, you'll know it's so much easier to do in your head!

My partner, Hayley, turned 30 a week ago. You need some back story to appreciate the pressure I was under here...

I turned 30 last year in August and Hayley threw me a surprise weekend at her family bach just out of Taupo. By surprise I mean I thought we were going there with four of our mates for a snowboarding weekend.

I went to another bach round the corner on the Friday night to borrow some snowboarding gear, knocked on the ranch-slider and when the curtain was pulled back there were all my closest friends and family. I swore profusely.

Over the next 24 hours more mates and family kept arriving and we had a big party on the Saturday night. She then revealed she'd been saving for the best part of six months, behind my back (we have a joint account) for a trip to Vanuatu.

As I said, I was under some considerable pressure to top this. Luckily her parents are shouting her a trip to Bali for her birthday, so I was off the travel hook! Surprise-wise though, it's hard to surprise someone when they are partially, or at least subconsciously, expecting it! It's also a mission to organise someone who has no idea they are being organised!

The Mount is a special place for Hayley, she walks up it quite a bit, how could you not be happy at the top of it? You might even just be stoked that the climb is over, but that's enough to make you feel like you've accomplished something.

When I told her friends and family that they needed to be at the top of the Mount at 3pm on Saturday, I neglected to tell the ones from out of town that it was 20 minutes of decent exercise. We have some mates who smoke. I feel I've done their lungs a service.

Hayley was blown away on Saturday afternoon, she got to the top and 25 people were standing there singing her happy birthday, holding up a birthday banner. She also swore, though not as much as I did last year!

Apparently there had been a few false starts on the singing before we got up there. Sorry if you randomly got half of Happy Birthday sung to you at about 3.20pm last Saturday up the
Mount!

So it was a success, we had a big party that night with everyone at our good friend's house. We played beer-pong (Google it), I ended up having a little much and agreeing to swap clothes with Hayley at 1am. I also broke the necklace I gave her for her birthday while I was doing that. There go all those brownie points I earned!

(Will Johnston is host of The Hits 95FM Day Show. Live and local from 9 am till 3 pm, every weekday in the Bay of Plenty)