Parttttaaaaayyyy!

Well I couldn't begin to tell you all about the weekend, but this is the potted herb history..

Thursday... Zac's friends staying, curry night, 'getting to know you'

Friday ... fancy dress hunting for wig (and then the one I ordered (unwittingly from China) arrived in the post after I got home; Tesco 'big shop' arrived at teatime, men spent evening carpet laying and we ladies cleared 'stuff' for the space we would be using and prepped the bunting and photos for the slide show!

Saturday .... making food, food, more food.. fruit, sandwiches, soup to sustain us til the evening, boys on electrics and us girls titivating the place!  Loving it! The camaraderie and banter of getting ready for the party is almost as good as the do itself. Everyone was so good,so helpful and we are so grateful to all our family and especially their friends who came along but pitched in on the jobs as well.

Saturday night .. about ten days early, but Happy Birthday Col!  We all dressed in a theme of his life and loves, plenty of scope as he is a child of the 60's, loved Thunderbirds, Punk Rock and all things marine and technical.. 





I donned a blonde bob and a gooey pink blancmange of a dress and came as Lady Penelope goes to the Ball, while Pops came as a Thunderbird and Col came as a young Jacques Cousteau whose dive programmes inspired his whole way of living.  He made a fantastic aqualung for his outfit and even fake tanned up (wash off-able) and Kate was proud of him.. me too! 

The kids were great too... Kate as Baywatch / Bondi Rescue (well she had to have a girlie outfit) JB as Dad's Safety Girl (she is so inventive!), Ross & Zac as Saudi Arabians, paying tribute to Col's time in Saudi on dive jobs.. Lisa and Co came as Beatles and glam rock, they both looked great in blue satin and the babes as little policewomen..awhhh
April came as Cinderella and was in bed before the rest of us as she had work the next day, so she didn't end up doing her Cinders trick on the dishes for once!

Later on we sang Happy Birthday and (Zac) Mr Blobby made an entrance with the last of Jordan's huge array of cupcakes and buns.

A whole bunch of people came dressed as motorbikers, safety folk, divers, heroes of the 60's and of course the odd Scouser / Liverpool footie fan! It was lovely to see people we had been meaning to see for ages. 

Sunday we had lots of clearing up to do but the sun shone too and we sat in the garden (oh after doing breakfast for 15!) .. then a nice walk at Marazion with friends who came down from up north, the kids had gone out on the boat and it was great to know they are wise enough now to go it alone.. well four of them are training to be Officers of the Watch and the other a Paramedic, plus JB and there's not a daft head in that group  so we were very relaxed.    

More barbecue eats and chat last night before a lazy day back to rain today.. so glad it is a Bank Holiday though and only four days work ..

...and I have just worked out that we have good excuses for parties the next few years too.. Pops is 80 next year, then Kate 18 / JB 21 and then Ross 30 before we rock up in 2017 with our Silver Wedding!

The day the police came to my party!

When I was a kid I used to really look forward to my birthday parties.. and then as soon as we had eaten the birthday tea and everyone was running about I would find myself a book and wish they would all go home!  

Mum always did me a lovely spread, party games and if it was fine us kids often had parties on the 'lawn' which had once been a grass tennis court in the cottage next door. 

I remember a blindfolded game where they made you think you were flying off a pile of cushions, I have no idea what it aimed to be / do, but it is a big memory of a tall pile of cushions and having to trust the grown ups not to let you go!

We were a small fishing cove a long way from town and only ever had the rare visit from a policeman on a motorbike about once every 6 months. P C Glover was a kindly man and used to drop in to ours and Mum would always make him a cup of tea (it was her true vocation, making people at home, making them tea and cake!)

One year my birthday party, probably my 6th or 7th..was in full flow, ten or twelve kids all shouting and reaching for their favourite food from a huge table full of goodies (this was when a party was extra special and we didn't eat party rings all year round!)  
Quietly PC Glover appeared in the door and the place fell silent.. well apart from my cousin Neil who had his back to the door and was last to notice the presence of 'the Police'..  his face was a picture and he soon stopped yapping!  
The grown ups loved it, very amused.

Half an hour later PC Glover came back again, he had been up the road to buy me a box of chocolates for my birthday.  Not bad community relations huh?

I don't have any pictures of those parties I can add here but it seems fair to add this lovely shot of me at about four outside our house with Ted (Neil's dad) and his brother Bobby George; they were painting the outside of our house and once again Mum had done the tea making duties!  Loving the big cup!  (thanks Sarah for the pic)

Party time at ours..

I was browsing through my photos and thought I would share the flavour of 'party time' with the Jones' household!

If we go out to eat it is usually to St Ives, this is the dessert plate Seafood Cafe gave Lisa on her 21st.

April & Ross bought me this lovely scribble plate and when all else fails to inspire for tea we chop up lots of crunchy stuff with humous and it certainly feels more like a party than boring old 'teatime'!

Back in the day.. well August 1998 to be precise, we were running a Wreck & Rescue Centre in a local fishing village, it made the perfect venue for Col's folks Ruby wedding party.

Lots of friends and family came from as far away as Holland and Liverpool (!) and everyone took on board the Maritime theme.  



The next day we were meant to have a barbecue and bouncy castle day but it rained cats and dogs so we managed to run an impromptu party with magic show in our workshop!  Ahh even my big kids were impressed by it... shame when they all get older and it takes so much more to get an oooo and an ahhhhh!


..amazing to see pictures of Kate with her gingery ringlets and JB looking a lot like our Lilly.













This was Lilly's 'party' cake over at ours a couple of years ago, three years old.. why it seems like she has been here forever, she will be five in July!

Sorry the picture is a bit duff!
I love the bunting on this layout..mental note.. must get more scrapping done..Sooooon!

Jordan's 18th.. another trip to Seafood. There were about 12 of us, immediate family.. we are a party on our own without inviting anyone!

She is such a Daddy's girl.. x

Anyway that's a flavour of parties at ours, I should have some nice pics of Saturday's do by the end of the week.. and who knows, maybe even a story or two!

Reflect & enjoy..

Well on reflection (!) I have enjoyed the last weekend, so I shall look and see what bits really did it for me...

• getting some things tidied and clearing up jobs which needed doing for some time
• making plans for partying next week
• spending some nice time with the family
• eating good food
• eating and drinking outdoors in front of a fire
• great lazy time with feel good conversation
• feeling sunshine on your face and in your heart

So it seems like summer is almost here, the evenings are getting longer and lighter, it's just the warmer that we need now.  

Maybe Summer will be in May this year again...this is a layout I did two years ago saying as much ..

and last May also gave us a few great outdoor moments..

May views..and news!

Oh well I will stop apologising for lateness and just show you the kind of crazy things which have been happenening in these parts!

Last week we cleared the 'dining end' and made ready for a temporary partition so the wall could be removed and my new space embraced!

This is my 'yard view', the big scaffolding is still up so I thought I'd share a pic peering at the hall window and the last image of the now defunct kitchen window... yay, it is no more.. we are almost there!



Porthcurno May



 April & Ross kindly did the Porthcurno run and took this lovely shot of a clear day at the beach. You can just see the speck of a helicopter on manoeuvres just above the cliffs.



I think I missed an April view here but to be fair it is still moving very slowly through the season, though wild garlic is much in adundance.. does the poem mention wild garlic???





Last week I had Lilly over and she made a pretend bird's nest from dried grasses and she worked really hard at decorating it with flowers. Pops put two chocolate eggs in it and she ate them pronto, no pretending there! 

Annabelle is doing great, starting to gurgle and loves just watching big sisters up to all kinds! She will be free of the hip brace soon and is being weaned off it, less worrying the second time round I guess and she has been resolved faster than Lyla too.

That leaves two views, the Mount which I will get next week, hopefully in soem less inclement weather, and the sofa! Well Kate has a new beau and he was on the sofa with her last night.. they posed looking like they were busy on thephone and reading.. yeah, right!

It is a bit of a tense week here, JB is completing her Photography and Graphics A2 exams, they are a constant work in progress at this point, Zac is on his way home after his last exam, all ready now for two sea phases and Kate is starting exams but at the weekend she had her prom...oh and my love is just on his way home from 36 hours in Italy!

... more later, but here's a snippet!

Kate's crew..gorgeous..xx

Ready for the off, thank God for the sunshine!

Oh dear... late again said the White Rabbit!

... and so here I am very very late and two weeks behind on my challenges.

Suffice to say I shall just have to give you all some pics for thought and see if that works.

Lynne's week :

“ Make rest and refreshment a necessity, not a luxury”

Ahhh a few weekends ago our 21st Wedding Anniversary was coming up and Col made me the most gorgeous meal... a nicoise salad with eggs, anchovies and fresh tuna, followed by Eton Mess with my favourite passionfruit, raspberries and strawberries.. he certainly ticked all the boxes! Oh and Ferrero Rocher (with dark and coconut ones too) for extras!

 

We bought a new trampolene, always a hit with the kids of all ages and Kate and the girls will especially 'rest' a bit and enjoy that!

I have been taking Lyla to 'Toddlers Stay & Play' the last few weeks and it made me smile seeing the array of drinks containers we used in the garden! Something for everyone!

Zac came home for almost a week, his course is getting less busy and he had several free days working up to last weekend..he and Col are so alike, I wonder if Zac has 'Colin' written through him like a stick of rock!

Col & I had been away a couple of nights (he had a trip so I ran away to meet him.. the kids are getting real good at managing a night or two without us!)  It certainly has been doing us good, one of the kids commented that it's nice we still have something to talk about now they are all busy!!

So we got back Sunday afternoon and chilled in the sunshine with Zac..yes, even me!

Birthdays:this was April's choice for last week's prompt.  We have got birthdays most months around here, July especially!  Colin is 50 in June so there will be lots going on for that, partayyyyy! Jordan will have finished college by then, barring one exam so she will be on cake making mode.. here's a snippet of her one she made for April last week...xxx