Friends and Birthdays

I'm still chuckling at this - 'What?! Someone's had a slice of the cake?!

 

When that someone has driven all the way over to Box, near Bath, from Bosville, Normandy, braving severe weather warnings and tonnes of snow and that someone has her baby girl of only 7 weeks with her (that's me holding the little cherub, nothing more precious than baby cuddles, what a smartly dressed baby she is too!)...

AND she made the cake herself, yes, that's right, made it herself before leaving, as well as making sure her boy and man were catered for, I think she's excused and who can blame her? It was also her birthday, which she actually forgot about in all the preparation! Thank you RA!

Now I thought we were going for a quiet-ish weekend. We arrived on Thursday night, so as not to get snowed in. Film night on Friday, our friend in Box has set up a brilliant rural cinema, children's show on Saturday morning then a quiet night in for dinner on the Saturday...

We woke up to this on the Friday and that meant we had to go sledging and build snowmen!

The film night was postponed, due to the snow the film couldn't be delivered, but the children's one arrived for the Saturday morning and that was a great experience - hungover watching Madagascar III in a church on my 'significant' birthday, drinking hot chocolate and eating rocky road! 

I was totally bowled over by all my lovely friends making such an effort to get there and have so much fun! We chatted, cooked, laughed, drank, danced, cried, oh and of course - clothes-swapped! Here's Rowan getting into the spirit and trying on the shoes! Boys are not normally allowed to these events mind...

Bit blurred that photo, as were all the ones of the evening, which is probably a good thing, I don't want you getting the wrong impression of me!

Thank you Jam for being such a wonderful husband too, keeping it all secret, getting us there safely, getting the children's breakfasts ready, with beautifully drawn signs showing them where to go and how not to wake up the Mummy's, letting me have a lie in, a bathrobe, breakfast in bed...xx

Fossil hunting in Lyme Regis

Some friends, L & L came to visit us from London.  It was great to see them, they had been to a party the night before so took their time getting here, L nursing a hangover so L had to drive, hmm, this could get complicated...

So we drove to the seaside, Lyme Regis, famous for its fossils.  It's a quaint, small and expensive seaside town.  We considered having lunch there but it was extortionate. Jam really wanted a pasty and with hindsight we should have let him have one, for the pasty call didn't end there and I ended up making him pasties galore - actually, I started making them and he had to finish them, which made them taste so much nicer!

We stopped instead at a pub for a carvery, although they had run out of carvery so chose from the menu.  It was good.  There was a bit of confusion about the desserts but we got through it and came out smiling and feeling very full.  What a lovely day it was too, the weather was blusty but, did I just make that word up? Blusty, like gusty and blustering, hmm, just looked it up and blusty means 'A portmanteau describing a woman who has large, though quite clearly plastic, tits.'  Well, we didn't see any of them, but we did scramble along the beach to look for fossils. 

I found a few old pieces of broken crockery that were appealing to the eye and a flat piece of rock, almost slate like.  I took my treasure home and showed Jam the flat rock saying I'd like to engrave it for a friend as a new office gift, when he had a closer look and said ' honey, nice idea, but it's asbestos!'

Gutted, but when I told my friend the story he laughed saying that one of his first jobs was helping an Uncle with his roofing company and so dealt with asbestos all the time, no problem!

Gratitude

A Day of Gratitude

I've had a wonderful weekend away for a friend's birthday ~ country house, beach walk, laughter and giggles.  It's quite bizarre though, for they live right next to my Dad's first wife.  A couple of years ago they hosted a friend's wedding and used her garden for the venue and it wasn't until at the party that we discovered the link.  I was hanging upside down on the beams of the yurt with legs all over the place and a lopsided grin at the time, drunk to the hilt on champagne and she was talking to my husband saying 'I think that lady needs help', quite...

My little brother, who is also a musician, has come back to ours to record some of our music for another friend's wedding in May.  They are getting married abroad first so want to have a recording of the music to take with them.  I'm typing this as Jam is playing in the snug, it's such a treat to hear.  Music is everything, without it the world is like a flat bottle of coke.  Or do I mean a bottle of flat coke?  Music is the fizz of life.  Music makes life sparkle.

When I got home there was a parcel waiting for me and it was my friend's beautiful poetry book that I had ordered online from Lulu.  She's such a warm-hearted, kind, funny, generous and inspiring lady and I am so pleased to have her in my life.  We met whilst volunteering at a charity shop together in London.  She has inspired me to get on with my own poetry collection.  That is my project this year.  It's exciting.  Squeak!

I am so lucky to have so many beautiful people in my life.  It's nice to step out of the usual routine and take some large gulps of fresh air to clear out the system and be reminded of everything wonderful in your world.  Sometimes when there is a big change, or lots of changes it's too easy to get bogged down in the trivial daily matters and lose yourself in a depressing cycle of miserableness, worrying about silly things and forgetting the big picture.  So, cheesy as it is, I'm thankful for my life, for all the joy it brings to me and my family and friends.  I'm glad I have not forgotten how to smile at myself, and to others.  And I'm so pleased that since having my baby, my boobs are enormous.  Ok so that won't last and they will probably be around my ankles when I finish breastfeeding, but I will surely have something else to be grateful for when that happens.

Little Miss

Oh I miss my friends. 
I miss having fun. 
I miss Friday nights out. 
I miss lots of things beginning with 'F' - family, fish from the fish market, feeding the ducks, my feet being tickled, feeling sexy, fu**ing without worrying about waking the baby or squirting milk everywhere, fu**ing generally, farting, errr actually I don't miss that, in fact that was the one thing yesterday that made me realise how much I miss everything else!  It made us laugh so hard like we'd not laughed in a long time, tears were rolling down my cheeks, I nearly dropped the baby!

I'm not complaining here, I'm fully aware that I've chosen this path and I am very grateful for everything I have and don't have, I am just having a moment of missing.  Missing the boat and all our beautiful neighbours up there.  The ones that would just give a nod as they walked by, shout a greeting and make you smile.  There's none of that down here.  We're locked up in a little house now, without hoards of people walking by asking how much it costs to buy boats these days or whether or not they can have a ride. 

No short walk to the market to catch the latest bargain or the weeks fresh vegetables, or to meet a friend for a cuppa.  Nobody calling to say hey, what you up to, I'm in your area, fancy meeting up?  No crawling in at 4am after a crazy night out. No lie-in.  No good night's sleep. 

Ok enough of that! No need to dwell on the negative here.  I'm going to start sounding like I'm suffering with post natal depression, maybe I am?!  I'm not. Don't worry. It's just a moment.  It's that time of year too.  Silly season.  I accept that I am a grown woman now, with responsibilities.  My mispent youthfulness can be channelled into something else more productive.  It's fun to have new and interesting projects.  It's fun to not get much sleep and see how crazy it makes you.
Life is fun.
It's Friday night.
It's time to... oh, the baby's woken up...