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.

Birthday greetings, bottle of wine

Birthday greetings, bottle of wine - last night a housemate from many years ago, visited with a bottle of wine. He calculated my age and today remembered my birthday, sending me an email with birthday greetings. How nice is that!

Birthday frog!

Dear Step Daughters - two of them left me presents for my birthday last week, then #3 turned up with a slightly bigger parcel, requiring that I opened it there and then.  Look at this cross-stitch!

It's so fine; she must have worked for hours.  And she chose the frog because she knows I like frogs.

Today I'm in Luxembourg presenting our company's   (Catcher Media)  work package as part of the EU JuxtaLearn project. so she brought it round at the weekend.

Bowling together

Bowling together [1], not alone, demonstrates friendship, networks, and links.

My girlfriends, together with their partners or child in some cases, along with some very close members of my family went ten-pin bowling for my birthday. Some friends came from very close, being neighbours, and others from miles away, people I knew when our children were small, friends from the Open University, and friends from tae kwon do.

Unfortunately friends from belly dancing and toastmasters couldn't make it or we could have had some performances and speeches.

Husband made a wonderful cake - the best tasting he's made yet, and he bakes good cakes. He iced it with numbers

00111100

People gave me wine, flowers, smellies, chocolates and books, so I'm having a week of luxuriating in the bathroom. There's sparkling Saumur left to share if you have the time to come and visit me.

I don't know who gave me a dozen pink scented roses - they're beautiful. Thank you, friend.

---

[1] Putnam, R. D. (2000) Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon & Schuster, New York ; London.

BIG birthday

I have a big birthday coming up and I would like to celebrate it. I'd like to celebrate:

1. with sixty girlfriends,
   
2. take them to a spa for a day,
   
3. with a nice lunch and
   
4. lots of bubbly.
   

Realising that around a dozen girlfriends had commented supportively on my Facebook page when I talked about my radiotherapy, I wondered if I had sixty girlfriends, so I counted them up and reached over seventy. Seventy girlfriends collected over the years from school, college, work, hobbies, and neighbours, and my lovely female relatives.

But, first I couldn't find a suitable spa for us all, although daughter and I did go and test run a couple. ;) And secondly, some of my friends live too far away, maybe only in another county, but some live in the States, or Australia or Spain or New Zealand or somewhere in Asia.

So I'm planning a smaller get together of my local girlfriends with a few important men friends as well for luck.

I've asked Husband to bake me a big fruit cake, and last night the kitchen smelled of spices and fruit, so that's promising. I've found a venue, and started to invite a few people.

Now, I need to organise the nibbles and fizz. How shall I decorate the room? Any suggestions?

a Good Day

June 17th
Both my children today are having good days. Although neither has spoken to me, I've heard from them electronically. One texted that she's:

"Off to Bordeaux! :))"

which means she's got good end of second year university exam results. The other has Facebooked:

"Done"

which means he has taken his last university exam this morning and is relieved.

It's beautiful weather.

And a Good Day.

Son's surprise birthday party

I like my son's friends. His friends from school turned up this week with a birthday cake for his 21st birthday, to celebrate as a surprise now in the holiday because they couldn't do it in April when they were all at university.

Not a birthday

Today he doesn't celebrate his birthday

GoApe

Daughter spent yesterday afternoon at the local GoApe with seven friends. She and I did this a couple of years ago (see old blog posting), and it was just great, exhilarating, one of the best things of that year for me.



She came home very happy, and talked about her friends who'd gone with her, who'd not turned up, who'd been afraid of heights, and who'd made her a birthday cake. Exhausted girl is still in bed this morning.

Birthday

It's a bit quiet now all the children have gone. I toodled off to tae kwondo and pleaded birthday as an excuse for doing fewer press ups. The instruction was to do ten press ups but five if you were under 14. It is not wise to draw attention to yourself at tae kwondo as the subum is inclined to give you as many press ups as you are old. However, this was not the usual subum, but one who just told everyone it was my birthday and to give me a clap!

"Choosing chocolates" I mused on my Facebook status, which drew "Eeny meeny miny mo! Happy Birthday" from SD#2

Surprise walk

My posting on the planned walk to see a white horse was a trick.

I told husband I wanted to see a white horse, and I pointed at Ashbury. He then 'planned' the day including lunch at a local pub. However, he wanted to start walking at 10 o'clock, and I wanted to start at 11. I had to slow him down. SoI

• lay in late
• showered
• remembered I'd forgotten my mobile phone.
• asked to stop in Stanford-in-the-Vale to look for the grave stones of distant relatives
• complained about the bumpy roads
  
• burped as if about to be sick
• asked for the loo.

But we still got to the empty car park before eleven o'clock.

Then step daughter #3 turned up. She beamed and announced that she thought she'd like a walk. We slowly put our boots on to delay a little longer. Step-daughter #1 with her husband and three children arrived too.

"Happy Birthday, Daddy!" "Hello Granpa!"

Step-daughter #3 & partner arrived next. And finally step son with his wife and two children.

Then he realised that he'd been set up and all the family were arriving to walk with him, and someone else had booked the pub for the 16 of us.

They all had their stories. One had started early then had to go back to fetch something for a niece; one had left Loughborough at 8 o'clock but had gone round every which way.

Husband thought that he was setting up the day, but actually it was his four children who were setting it up to give him a belated birthday surprise. The idea was to get him to the car park at Ashbury for 11 o'clock so they'd all be there to greet him, and it was my job to get him there.

Between them all they'd planned and organised a lovely day for their dad. He was surprised and pleased by his lovely four children.

Husband's 65th birthday

We both took the day off yesterday for a walk in the Malverns and a climb to the beacon.

We ended the day sharing a meal out with 3/4 children plus assorted spouses and grandchildren and step son. Everyone was merry and happy - a pleasant celebration.

Birthday boy

Son has friends round to celebrate his 20th birthday tomorrow. They've made a fondue. I find that fascinating because there was a decade when it was naff to have a fondue and when I gave someone a set as a present it went down like a load of curdled cold cheese fondue. Yeuch! Yet his father and I always used fondues for fun meals, and had cheese ones when vegetarian friends and relatives came. How nice that son sees fondues as fun too.