4am and I am up having a cup of tea, with the birds in full song outside.We had an absolutely fabulous weekend. Martin and Fiona, Ali and Eric and kids, arrived on Friday, and Kevin and Mag, Don and Chris arrived Saturday. We had mixed veg soup or carrot and coriander soup for lunch followed by birthday cake. We took a chance on the weather and sat outside.

Before the fray

The family

 There was a mixup over the cake, as I wanted an OU student to make it. She posts photos of her cakes on the forum. I thought she lived in Yorkshire and she thought I lived in Kent, so in the end it would have been too expensive to buy one of her as she hand-delivers. So I ended up making the cake myself - very homemade looking as you can see. I think my soups were more successful. Anyway, we had a great lunch.

The cake

The Cutting of the Cake

 We then had the Opening of the Presents. For years John has regretted the fact that his mother gave away an early photo of him as an altar server, so unbeknown to him I emailed the priest at our childhood’s parish and traced it. The parish archivist also sent me three others, including one of an outing on the offchance that John would be in it. There he is in the front row, grinning away into the camera, with lots of other old familiar faces. He was so pleased to get it.

I also got him a genuine Australian leather hat, as he has always admired the one Martin and Fiona have between them!  (Don’t ask) He had lots of other lovely pressies. Here he is in his hat.

John in the Hat

 I’m going back to bed now. More later.

 Morning. Here we are again. Grandkids having stale bagels for breakfast and I’m uploading more photos.

Ali in the hat.

Eric, Liam and Kieran

Martin and Fiona

Kevin

Mags

Don and Chris

The big surprise for John was that we were getting outside caterers in for the evening meal. A few things were inadvertantly said, like, ‘There’s a strange man in the kitchen,’ but John didn’t catch on. We had an absolutely lovely three course meal, and I didn’t have to do anything. Even the cutlery and crockery was provided and then taken away to be washed up on the chef’s premises. I found them on the web and they work from Beverley nearby. Their site is

www.2chefs.co.uk

Here we are after our evening meal.

The day finished with a firework display which Fiona arranged. Once John knew the neighbours had been warned he was happier, as they were very loud. They were also very colourful. You only had to light one match and you got a continuous display for three minutes.

So all in all, a wonderful day!