The Birthday

Its quite a while since my last post.


I've been very busy so this is an account of my activities in case you were wondering.
Read no further if not.
We've been giving the house a bit of a makeover


Re decorated the front room.
And generally 'tittled' the place up a bit.
These smell fabulous on the bend in the stairs, now they have opened.


As you may know I have been making curtains.. I need to add more width, they are a bit skinny, but they look very nice behind the new sofa.


Here it is in all its glory, totally unscathed from the party. (What do you think the throw was for?)


(This room is flooded with light if the sun shines so the pics are bit bleached out)
All the books were re-instated in the re-positioned bookshelves.


The old sofa is staying I can't bear to part with it, and we needed the seating, so its been covered with a lovely sage green bedspread from IKEA ....


to hide the terrible truth.



All this in order to celebrate the 60th birthday of my lovely husband.
Here he is looking rather embarassed while 'Happy Birthday' was played and sung.


Here's the cake.

Its a bit of a catalogue of disaster decor wise. I eventually got an image scanned onto a piece of icing at a well known supermarket. (I was going to write 'Still my favourite squeeze'....but its not about me)

I hope the person from whom I 'borrowed' the illustration will forgive me. I didn't think putting it on a birthday cake and subsequently eating it counted as infringement of copyright. I found him in a Google search and then lost him so couldn't ask permission.


We had 46 guests on Saturday, 12 musicians

including the man himself, all playing traditional Irish tunes.


I love this picture because I can see my Husband,Mum, younger son, older sons girlfriend, sister in law, and two good friends.

I do have one concern though, that I forgot to bake the baguettes to go with cheese when the crackers ran out.
Oh dear.
But there was an awful lot of other food!
My concerns about mingling were unfounded..there was movement, activity, chatter, laughter, and generally smiles all round.

(Apart from my husband while he's playing his concertina..he has to concentrate and can't do two things at once)




This is the owner of Blodwen and the dear departed Porky.


There was even a rapper sword dance from my Husband and his University Friends, former Kingsmen, who had travelled from Cornwall, Bristol Nottingham, Newcastle and Durham.

(If you click the link you might see my husband in a few of the pictures in his tender youth with great big bushy sideburns, In picture 4 he is the one on the right of the two somersaulters, and in picture 7 he is on the right doing a Northumbrian clog dance)

They remembered it perfectly even though the last time they practised it was 10 years ago.
(Not counting the quick practice they had in our kitchen on saturday night)

Great Craic!



We seriously over estimated the amount of beer and wine that would be consumed..



and underestimated the generosity of our friends.





The table above has come out of my sewing room.
We also removed the bed to another room for guests, and it made me realise what a wonderful great-big-shelf a bed makes.


How will I ever get it back to normal?

Wednesday update: I did it! I am off to do a bit of theraputic sewing. maybe some more hearts in time for Valentines just to get me going again.