Happy birthday me

Having a special birthday this month, it seemed worth having a bit more of a celebration than just ignoring it. After all, who knows what state I'll be in for my next big 0 birthday?

There's a local tea shop that does yummy cakes, decent tea, and an elegant espresso, with a separate couple of rooms upstairs. I talked to its propiator, Nicki. She was happy to cater for up to 18 people up there, and would bake me chocolate gluten free birthday cake with candles. 

I invited about a score of local women friends. Not all could come; we ended up with around a dozen. But some had never met any other friends of mine before and some were going to know only each other, like the choir sops. How to get them to mingle?

Now the thing about getting older is that you've done lots of interesting things, so I got a quiz together, contacting each friend beforehand to ask for fun and interesting facts about them. Then I put the facts together as a quiz for them to ask each other and find out about each other. 

Here are some of the facts.

• Who appeared on the BBC milking a cow?
• Who fell into the sorting machine at the council rubbish tip! 
• Who has a model village with a hamster buried in a mahogany coffin under the parish church?
• Who was asked out by Vice President Johnson of the United States?
• Who fed hamburgers to lions at Tampa?
• Who went to a Buckingham Palace Garden Party in 2012?  
• Who completed a 2100m x 8 zip wire challenge in Split, Croatia!
• Who lived on a farm in Norway, also in a cabin in the woods?
• Who walked into the Louvre when it was shut because the security guard thought she was staff?
• Who trespassed in the Karnak temple in Luxor, Egypt, after closing time?
• Who is studying an OU law degree?
• Who did a masters at Oxford at 57? 
• Who got married to Davey Jones from The Monkees twice a day for two months?
• Which mad, irresponsible mum (and dad) took toddlers to an uninhabited island off the coast of Malaysia where there were no people or electricity or phones but large monitor lizards!
• Who's done at least 25 amateur musicals including playing Annie in Annie get your gun, and Roxie Hart in Chicago? 
• Whose first serious full-time job was as a milk woman and was taught by a milkman called Ernie?
• Which woman here has pulled a car?
• Who is a Morris musician and dancer?
• Who's got a 16.2hh chestnut sports horse?
• Who's been sky diving?
• Who was a games maker working at Greenwich at the equestrian event for 2012 Olympics?
• Who overcame extreme fear on canopy walkways in Malaysia, Sydney Harbour Bridge, the cathedral in Milan and Sigiriya Rock in Sri Lanka?
• Who caught a 7-foot-long sail fish?
• Who's met the Queen?
• Who collects mechanical clocks?
• Who's bathed on a beach in Goa?
• Who's flown a glider round a preplanned 100km route?
• Who's got a black belt in a martial art?

Aren't my friends interesting?! You recognise the facts about me? After about an hour and a half, we had a plenary, and matched every fact to someone in the room, which elicited more stories, like why she was on a zip wire in the first place, and what answer she gave VP Johnson. It was a fun couple of hours. Thank you my friends.