birthday girl (and boy)

This chasing business lark is sure making it difficult to get time to spend on the blog. I thought I’d have loads of time back here in the UK. But I’m getting lots of appointments and meetings, though I’m still waiting for the business to flood through…..no change there then. Ah well, I mentioned in the last posting that my wife C was in for a bit of a surprise on our return. A week or so after getting back it was her birthday which she shares with our grandson S. However this was to be the birthday all women dread I think. 40 might be the new 30 and 50 the new 40 but the big 6 Oh! remains the passing point into OAP status and those 3 little letters cut deep into any woman’s heart.

We’d planned an intimate surprise dinner for C with just our immediate family and our oldest friends’ family. We couldn’t really stretch to a big do (especially as the girls were being generous about the whole thing) and I was pretty sure anyway that C would have preferred to keep it small and close rather than some overblown affair. Well that’s what we hoped. Much of the planning was sorted out by our daughter S – venue, hotel search etc – and she did a great job.

But first of all we celebrated our fabulous grandson S’s 7th birthday. We explained that something was going to follow for C the week later, which intrigued her I think although she had no idea what precisely. E and S had organised a 5 a-side soccer party for S with all his school friends at the local leisure centre which was great fun. I really enjoyed allowing the kids to take pot shot penalties at me at the end of the event. Of course I was sensational against these youngsters. We ensured that S’s team won the cup and that he collected it as team captain. Of course we also spread the other awards around though it was intriguing to have a number of 6 and 7 year olds come up to me afterwards to have the scoring system validated. You can’t get anything past today’s kids that easily!

In the middle of the next week we met up with C’s brother and sister and their spouses of course  who came down from up t’north and treated C and I to a great pub lunch in Towcester. It was good to see everyone in happy circumstances for a change. 

So to C’s ‘surprise’ do. S had chosen a fantastic restaurant called Rock & Rose down the Kew Road. Spookily we had passed the restaurant just a couple of days beforehand and C had said that she really fancied eating there one day. Earlier in the day our daughters S and E had arranged for C to have some massage, beauty and hair treatments. This allowed us time to get everything ready. By 8pm everyone was gathered at Rock and Rose in this beautiful private room at the back of the restaurant whilst I brought C to the venue. She was truly moved to find the key people in her life all there to celebrate with us.

I have to tell you that the service was brilliant and the food just superb. I cannot fault the restaurant in any which was great because it allowed the rest of the evening to develop really well. We’d asked the folks attending to pick 5 words to describe C then she had to identify who had picked them – a lot of laughs with the spicier word choices.  Then I went through a selection of the really nice comments that we’d asked a whole bunch of friends and family from all over the world to e-mail to us before the event. After that our daughters gave some brilliant little speeches about how much they love their mum and what she means to them. Finally C’s closest and dearest friend S gave a beautiful speech – the first she’d ever given publicly in her life – about C. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. All this stuff was pre-mounted in a lovely memories book which was given to C at the end of the night. 

I think she had just the loveliest of evenings and I was pleased to see her so happy. I think it made turning 60 into something special. I wondered what it might be like knowing that I’d be sleeping with an OAP henceforth then I reconciled myself with the thought that a) I’d already been sleeping with a grannie for 7 years and b) she’s still hot and still got it. Happy birthday babe.

pp

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