Birthday weekend

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I became a multiple of 11 last week. I decided I would like to involve my family in my celebrations.

On Thursday night, I spent the evening making sure the house was as clean and tidy as I could. I got to bed around 1.30am, stupidly writing a poem as I was going to sleep as I had an idea for World Book day/

Friday, after school, my Mum, older sister, her husband and my niece came to our house. We had a cup of tea and chat and then we all chose what we wanted from the local Chinese takeaway.  My BiL and I drove round to pick it up.  Unfortunately, they made one mistake on our order so we went back and picked up the correct one again!

The dinner was tasty but there was loads left over.  We then set up our coffee table for a game. We started with one of my favourites, The Big Taboo.

If you have ever played Articulate, Pictionary or Cranium, it has aspects of all of those.

If you land on the red Taboo square,  it is a describing round where you have to communicate words to your team without using certain Taboo words.

If you land on the yellow Drawing square,  it is a drawing round where you have to communicate  words to your team by drawing it.

If you land on the green 15 words square,  it is a describing round where you have to communicate a word to your team but ONLY using 15 words in the ENTIRE round, so you have to be as minimal and sparing with words as you can. The best I have ever done at this is my team has guessed 8 different words from my only saying 15 words.

If you land on the blue Bendy Bob square,  it is a puppetry round where you have to communicate  words to your team by manipulating Bendy Bob, a purple flexible puppet, to act them out.

There are also 2 purple Memory round squares which are ALL PLAY rounds where a team member has to take all the cards that have been played already and describe them to both teams by only using 2 words.

It is a raucous, hilarious game, especially Bendy Bob round.  CBC was a asleep in an armchair and so my BiL and I were on one team and then my sister, niece and Mum were on the other team.  My team TROUNCED the other team.

We then played the 5-second rule game which is great fun.  In this game, you have cards which say "Name 3..." and then you have to name 3 of whatever is on there by the time the 5 second timer has run out. If you fail to do it, then the next person in the circle has a go (don't name an already named one!) and then the next...  I won!

I was sad when they went home but it had been fun!

The next morning, CBC and I woke fairly late, he later than I! 

I did a little bit of resetting and tidying up and did some work in the garden and then at around 3.30pm, my Dad, Stepmum, my other sister and the dog arrived.  We had a cup of tea and then set off in the cards to take a walk where the HMS Beagle's final resting place is supposed to be in a village called Paglesham.  We then went to a pub for dinner.  It was very nice but very expensive!

We drove back home which took a little while  and had crisps and tea and then played 2 board games.

We began with Qwirkle Cubes which was a birthday present from my Brother in Law, CBC's brother. I ADORE Qwirkle so it was fun to play an alternative version! I won!

We then had a quick game of 'Pass the Bomb' which is a word game. You draw card with a 2-3 string of letters e.g.  ELL.  You roll the dice and that determines if there are any exclusions, e.g.  You cannot use the letters at the START of the word or at the END. The first player then picks up the 'bomb' which has a variable timer on it.  It ticks and you pass it around the group, saying a word that uses the letter sequence e.g.   HELLO, BELLY, JELLY, BELLOW, FELLOW, FELLOWS, FELLOWSHIP.  At some point, the bomb will 'explode' (sound effect). Whoever has it in their hand has to keep the card and then at the end of 13 cards,whoever has the least cards is the winner. If there is a tie, the people in contention play until sudden death.  It got to tie between CBC and I and he won!

They went home fairly late.

The next morning, I got up for church. It was a lovely service. After that, I ate some breakfast and then lunch whilst reading and then decided to go for a walk (CBC was out cycling) as the weather was so beautiful!  I walked about 3.5 miles and decided to call in at my friends Richard and Jenny from church.  They were delighted to see me and we had a lovely chat in their conservatory. I then walked home and then read and we ate leftover Chinese for dinner whilst watching Gladiators. 

I got some nice presents. CBC got me a beautiful pair of Indian Block print pajamas from a shop in Hexham as well as a cute squirrel music box jewellery box that plays music from Mozart's Magic Flute.  Mum gave me some money to pay for my new Saxophone case and got me some edibles including a kilo of Cacao.  My sisters both got me edibles plus some cute green beaded hoop earrings from my younger sister, my Dad and Stepmum got me some nice balsamic vinegars and a Booktoken, CBC's Mum got me a book I wanted, my Godmother got me a lovely travel mug and a book on boardgames and my BiL got me Qwirkle cubes. 

It was a lovely birthday weekend and I am very grateful.

xx

CBC's birthday weekend and the previous week

 Ah, what a lovely weekend we have had!  I am going back to school tomorrow feeling really glad about it.

Last week, my first week back at school was actually fine.   You know I was worried about the shelves?  Well, although the level of the top shelf IS too high for the little children, because the shelves are double width, I have managed to fit most things on the shelves and it is working out ok so far.  I got very, very dusty last Monday getting everything put onto shelves, getting the cupboards sorted etc.  The return to school was fine.  I had my first choir and drumming club- with 17 children and 10 children, respectively, and both were enjoyable and the children seemed to be really pleased and have a good time.  The first orchestra since Christmas was good too and we began an arrangement of Korobeniki, the theme from the Tetris computer game. I WAS tired after the week though.

Friday night, CBC and I bought some Chinese takeaway for dinner which was delicious and a welcome treat after a tiring week.

Saturday morning, we got up at a reasonable hour, not hideously late but not early and I made CBC a brunch consisting of Pain Au chocolat (reduced to 38p for 4 from the Co-op), tea/coffee, juice and then crusty brown bread, scrambled egg with chives, salad leaves (rescued from the bin at school- it was on top and totally enclosed in plastic)  and Gravalax with honey and mustard sauce.  Whilst we ate that, we had a Zoom meeting with his mum, brother and sisters which was pleasant.

He then opened his presents. I bought him:

• Homemade cheeseboard box: rather than buying an overpackaged special box, I bought vintage Gouda, Brie De Meaux, Gorgonzola, Manchego Reserve Gruyere, Somerset Crunchy vintage Cheddar; Oat and Chive wheat biscuits, Rosemary Crackers, Beetroot and three seed oaty biscuits from Lidl and then packaged them in a recycled cardboard box with some straw from my birthday hamper.  As I have alluded to, CBC is a cheese fan and he was really pleased.
• 4 Cliff bars- these are energy bars for long distance cycling.
• Lidl special Ginger and Belgian chocolate wafer biscuits; Almond, dark chocolate and sea salt nut bars, Cadbury's Caramel nibbles.
• White Stuff navy blue linen Summer trousers (purchased last September in the 70% sale!) 
• 4 pairs of Seasalt Bamboo sailor socks (purchased in January with my 50% off teacher discount code) 
• I commissioned a lovely young artist called Emily White to do an A4 painting of a Robin, Blue Tit, Sparrow and Blackbird all sitting on Honeysuckle as CBC loves the birds in our garden and spends a lot of time watching them feeding and sitting on our honeysuckle.  It arrived on Saturday morning and it is so utterly beautiful.
• He was so pleased with all his presents.  He was also really pleased with the beautiful RSPB ceramic bird bath that my Mum bought him (which I saw in a catalogue at hers and suggested she buy for him)
  

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• After we'd hung some washing, we drove to a village called Stock to meet our friend N.  We then all got in his car (with masks and windows open) and drove to a village called Blackmore where we ate lunch at the tearoom.  Ah, it was so nice- we sat in the beautiful sunshine and ate our lunch.  I had a Hoisin Duck salad and a thick Chocolate Milkshake with cream and sprinkles.
• We then walked the stretch of the St Peter's Way from Blackmore to Stock which was around 14km  Ah, it was such a wonderfully interesting walk and really pleasant and easy.  We saw lots of lovely things, including going through a brilliant Victorian tunnel under the main Norfolk line railway which was really long and dark.

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•  We saw and heard lots of birds and even saw a Barn Owl!  We unexpectedly stopped at the  Red Lion in Margaretting for a cup of tea/pint for the other 2 plus a bag of crisps.  We reached the car back in Stock and then drove N to pick up his car in Stock.  We then drove home, via our much missed, beloved Thai restaurant in our old town of resistence to buy a sneaky takeaway before returning home to eat it.
• The next morning (today), CBC got up to cycle to the old town to meet another of his old housemates for a social cycle ride.  I also decided to get the train back to that same home town to attend church.  It was SO lovely to be back in person to church for the first time since last year! It was so nice briefly see people to say hi behind facemasks- and I really enjoyed the calm and peace and thought of the service.

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• After this, I called CBC who was having a cup of tea in his old housemate's garden and so I cycled up the hill a few miles to see them also.  We had a happy catch up in their garden whilst admiring their raised bed of vegetable and fruit plants and playing with their 3 year old. They also have a 4 week old who it was lovely to meet.  L, CBC's housemate's lovely wife was so pleased to see us and she said it made her weekend to see us.  They gave us delicious 'Breaded Vegetable Finger' sandwich.  CBC escorted me on his bike (me on mine) to the station and then he was planning to cycle the 15miles or so back to our house.  To my chagrin, the moment he'd cycled off, I found out the next train was cancelled so I had to wait 47 minutes for the next train.  I had a brief walk up the high street to look in a charity shop.  When I FINALLY got home, CBC was already back! Sigh. He's so quick!
• CBC and I had a pot of tea along with a M&S Belgian chocolate eclair (the best type!) and then we did a few garden jobs.  I then planted some Chard, Pak Choi and Bean seeds to germinate.   I'm pleased to report that the 2 sunflower seeds I planted aaaaaaaaaaaaaaages ago, have FINALLY germinated! I thought all was lost but they were just shy!
• We ate the left over Thai food for dinner alongside the remainder of my last batch of Nettle soup.

Ah, it's been SUCH a lovely weekend

I hope that it has been enjoyable for you too!

xx

A COVID isolation Birthday day

Please, before I write anything else, please keep my sister's Father-in-Law in prayer. He's now developed a lung infection and it's looking to be pretty serious- please keep him in prayer.


It was CBC's birthday and so yesterday, I wanted to try and make his birthday as lovely as I could within the constraints of isolation, not being able to go and look for presents and the suchlike.

The previous night, I had put all his presents and cards on the coffee table and used my pinboard to write a birthday greeting and put my Scrabble Christmas Lights which say "Christmas" (very appropriate for Chris's birthday! I'd also dressed up his cuddly pineapple, Mr Pineapple, who he loves very much in a pirate costume complete with eye-patch, parrot and spotted bandana.
On Friday morning, when we woke up, once I was dressed (and we'd eaten a slice of pineapple each), I headed up the road to the CO-OP to see if I could get some lovely treats for his birthday day and weekend.
I was lucky as I arrived because there were only two people in the queue and they went in in less than a minute after I'd arrived. 
It was my first time at our local Co-op, a small store.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was a good array of stock.  I wanted to get things that were luxurious that I know CBC likes so around the store, the things I bought included Smoked Salmon, Salmon fillets, Sesame Bagels, Kalamanta Olive Bloomer bread, Thai Prawn crackers, Cucumber, wholewheat noodles, Fresh cream Chocolate eclairs, Almond Milk (very, very necessary as we'd run out of Milkman milk), Crackers for cheese, Lentil Dhal soup, eggs.

When I got back, CBC was delighted to see everything I'd bought.
He had to get some emails sent for work.  I'd stayed up till 2am the previous night getting Friday's school work done so I wouldn't have to do any on Friday.
CBC was excited that a parcel arrived from his Mum from Sharpham which was a Cheese and Wine box and included the most epic-sized chunks of cheese, 2 bottles of wine and 2 boxes of crackers.
He also received lots of messages from family and friends.

At lunchtime, we prepared several plates of Smoked Salmon with lemon juice, dill and pepper, cut slices of Olive bread, cut cumber and a bowl of Thai prawn crackers and then sat on our swing seat eating it. It tasted utterly sublime and luxurious!!

After this, we proceeded to the sofa where CBC opened his presents and cards.  Two parcels had arrived from my Mum and his sister so the previous night, I wrapped both of them up in wrapping paper so he had something to open (I hasten to add, this was used wrapping paper from previous presents!). He received 5 packs of Fairtrade coffee from my Mum and a lovely rainbow cycling top from his sister.  I'd also ordered a cycling top (a vintage-look Paris-Roubaix top) but it hadn't arrived.  The presents I'd got for him (very small) were 2 bars of Divine Fairtrade chocolate, a new Lemon and Tea tree cardboard deodorant, a new Montelbano shampoo bar from Lush and some spare cycling lights.  The latter 3 presents were all things I'd bought but wanted him to have things to open.

We had had some cake and tea.

After this, I headed to go and print out and cut up the clues for my very own Escape Room I'd created for him (more of that later) and whilst he was absorbed in school work, I went and hid all the clues in their various locations.

After this, about 3.15, I suggested to CBC that we go out for a walk and I would show him the local walk I've been doing which he hasn't seen.

On through the fields and I picked a new posy of Stitchwort to replace the one in the kitchen which was getting a little old.

CBC agreed that it was really good to get a walk out and he really liked this new walk.

Back home and CBC needed to get ready our next social engagement, a Zoom quiz party with his family.

I went and got into my outfit.  Oh, did I neglect to mention that CBC had set a Pirate and/sailor theme (someone else was inspired by Treasure Island on Sunday!) for his birthday. Did you notice his pirate attire earlier? He was wearing my waistcoat and coin necklace!

It was my turn to get into my outfit.  I had already decided that I would go down the 'sailor' route as opposed to pirate route- did I mention I have several nautical dresses?

I added some ribbon and a rosette to a pillar-box hat I had and donned my Jaeger sailor dress, added anchor shoes, Lobster brooch and telescope necklace.

As we got ready for the Zoom quiz, I played some sea shanties on my viola and he got out his Accordion.

The Zoom party began. The family were joined by his best childhood friend and family and everyone was dressed in pirate attire.  The most creative was his brother who had tied a black and white stripy scarf around his head so he looked like he had dread-locks alla Captain Jack Sparrow and had a washing up sponge parrot!

I forgot to mention that we decorated our sofa area with nautical looking objects- handy my mum gave me a plastic lobster for my birthday last year, I had a net potato sack, 2 shell curtain ties and we have a palm-tree-looking plant!

The quiz was great fun- the rounds were:  Pirates and nautical-based characters and fiction (mine), Finish the sea-shanty (CBC), Treasure (his mum), Seafaring Vessels (younger sister), Islands and their locations (brother).  It was such fun and very funny!

It ended around 7.15pm.  CBC and I had a quick cup of tea and then we began the 2nd Zoom party with my Dad, Stepmum, sister and her boyfriend (he was via Zoom)

We have all done 2 panic rooms together (locked room challenges where you have 1hour to solve the clues in order to escape) and we did an online one on Easter Monday.  We all missed the actual searching so I'd decided for CBC's birthday- to make a physical one- it was more like a treasure hunt in the sense that you had a clue and had to search for the next location but it was great fun.  I'd phoned my dad the previous week and asked if he was willing to be the Escape room setter-upper in his house.  The clues I  created all had a physical location that could be found in both house-holds so CBC and my sister//stepmum could search in tandem and find the clues in their own houses!  Her boyfriend gave ideas and technical support over Zoom (and he said it was really fun!).
Happily, they managed to find the final clue within the hour (their time was 51minutes).
We had a final 10minute chat and then the Zoom call ended.

The final event of the evening was dinner.  I'd preordered a takeaway from the Madeiran restaurant in our town and they arrived just as the Zoom call ended!

It was delicious!  We ended the evening watching Neighbours on the TV (we had 2 episodes to catch up on!) and ate Chocolate eclairs for dessert!

Finally, a team-photo before bed (you can see Mr Crabby below and Mr Pineapple above!)

It was a great fun set of activities and hopefully made what might have been a boring birthday that bit more fun and interesting!

Hope you are well.

xx

P.S.  Please can you remember my Father-in-Law in prayer.x

Birthday snaps!

I thought I'd share a few photos from my birthday weekend-mostly trying on silly things and the suchlike!

Over at my sister's on Friday.  Here was my niece's World Book day costume from last year- how impressive my sister made this without a pattern- she was the character from a book her class were studying then. And this is me in my 'Be your selfie' outfit- yep, this sums me up to a tee!

 Topshop-trying on the plain version of my Miss Patina cat collar shirt! This might have come home with me!

 Loving the Great Britain shirt! Novelty collars rule!

 Denim cat dress was so comfy- was tempted...

Dress version of my cat musicians blouse!

 Topshop Oxford Street has always had a great (but pricey) vintage section- I loved this little yellow ruffled dress but £110 was a bit much. 

 Checking out the Skinny dip handbags- I think these are so cool but I have come to the conclusion I cannot cope with small handbags (or ones without shoulder straps) so there was no fear it was going to come home with me.

 Oasis had an interactive display outside capitalising in on the Colouring book craze- you could colour in their exterior facade!

 Never noticed the Liberty ship before!

 Great display in Kiehl's. Skeleton riding on vintage bicycle in paisley kimono- nothing to see here.

 Carnaby Street is heaving!

 Into Irregular Choice to see the #IrregularAlice collection!

Mmmm...

 Trying on the Cheshire Flats...

 Sadly only in a size 43, not my 42, miles too big!

 More Cheshire cats and flats...

 And Cheshire cat in the dark!

 They had these soldier flats in a 41, but they hurt my feet!

 The Alice glitter shoes were so pretty (but pricey!)

 I've liked these Oil-slick brogues for ages but they were a) too pointy, b) too expensive, c) neither the 41 or 42 fitted me properly.

 Loving one of my presents from CBC- it's Teto the Fox-squirrel from Nausicaa, the Anime film! I totally fell in love with Teto and CBC sourced me my old cuddly one at great expense

 And scoffing all the salted caramel fudge from Mr Simms' sweetshop courtesy of Mummykins!

I had one or two lovely presents including some great dance shoes for Lindyhop from CBC and a lovely Mockingjay brooch from Melanie and WOMOTM and J gave me some money which I shall offset against the Sailor coat and er- something else!
xxx

Just call me the Universe

I celebrated my 34th birthday on Saturday.  Hmmm, getting close to 35. Yet I still feel 12 in my head! Does that ever change?

I received some sweet presents from kind people. I hadn't asked for anything- there are things I'd like but I don't like to ask really and was trying not to acquire more, I have more than enough than I could ever need.  I received: some beautiful patterned bowls from CBC which I have long admired as pretty in Waitrose with some nice cooking oils- sesame seed and Tamari; a Scrabble mug and mint tea from N; some tea mugs, hairclips, green tea and a Grumpy Carebear onesie from my Mum; £50 ASOS voucher from WOMOTM, some nice pens and a sudoko book from my work colleague, a red sparkly beaded bracelet from my friend M, some soaps from my Godmother.  I also received some pretty cards in the post too!

CBC made me a lovely fried breakfast and I had read my book in bed.

We headed off at about 2pm with N towards Colchester to go to Leisureworld which I previously mentioned is a fun swimming pool. We had great fun with flumes, lazy rivers, rapids and the suchlike.  Later, we headed back to N's house where he made pancakes and had lots of snacks and watched Cuban Fury with Nick Frost which was brilliant. I even managed to spot my Mum in it as she was an extra!  It was a nice chilled day and I had great fun so thanks to CBC and N for accompanying me.

Since it was a special day I decided to wear a new dress I'd bought some weeks ago with a Debenhams voucher- I'd wanted a galaxy skirt for ages but found this Red Herring galaxy dress for £7.70 in the sale which I thought was a good deal!  I almost got locked in at Debenhams Chelmsford for it!



It obviously was crying out to be a TARDIS Tuesday item since the opening credits of Doctor Who feature the space/time vortex and numerous scenes of the galaxy exploding are integral parts of the programme and storylines.

What to wear it with though?  Well, it was obviously a wintry day so I added a black polo neck underneath and my ubiquitous black opaque tights.  How to finish the look?   Well, since the whole outfit was about stars and the galaxy, it seemed necessary to wear my gold sparkly crown that Crown and Glory sent me as my birthday present as part of my Glitterati box this month. I can't help but think it alludes to The Angels take Manhattan,  a Matt Smith Doctor Who episode in which the Statue of Liberty comes alive and is after Rory and Amy.  It is very StatueofLibertyesque!

The final touches were: my hand-painted star boots and the piece-de-resistance- a working telescope necklace I bought a while back- star-gazing anyone?



Linking to TARDIS Tuesday and Creative Mondays and Hat Attack