My Dad’s birthday today. He is 68. That sounds terribly old – even to him, he tells me. I think he had a nice day. We’d wanted to go over to them today really – it’s just so much easier, there is way more room, we get to go home when we want to rather than having to wait for them to leave and there are things like tables to sit and eat at 😆 Dad actually said he’d rather we went over there for a change too.
This morning I was up hideously early. Tarly appeared in our bedroom at just after 5am. She was persuaded into our bed for an hour but she didn’t actually sleep, so neither did I. We got up just after six and I baked a birthday cake for my Dad (not one of my best) and having been tempted by the promise of a chocolate and ginger cake on a forum I frequent and bought the cocoa and ginger in preparation only for it to not be posted I googled and came up with a Nigella recipe instead. My Dad adores chocolate ginger so I’d promised to take it over with us if it turned out ok. It was lovely 🙂 Will post my slightly different interpretation to Nigella’s recipe over on indigestion later.
Davies and Scarlett made birthday cakes for Dad – Davies made an enormous one which he did lovely writing inside and the most fantastic picture with the whole page coloured. Tarly did a fairly interpretive picture but also wrote ‘Grandad, Love Scarlett’ really nicely with lots of kisses.
We’d got Dad a cd and a dvd he’s requested both by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, whom I’d never heard of but Dad enthused over. Having listened to them today whilst not the same I was reminded of The Barron Knights who my parents liked when we were little kids. We even went to see them in concert as a family. Retrospectively I wonder how much of an influence their work has had on me given how much I love to rewrite comedy lyric versions of songs 😆 Wonder whether they are looking for a female youngster to carry on the good work?
Great Granny (Mum’s Mum) arrived and we had a lovely lunch with the birthday cake to finish off. Davies decreed that everyone address Dad as ‘Birthday Man’ all day which was very funny, particularly when we all had to sing Happy Birthday again to get it correct. Granny and I had a bit of a set-to over lunch about a really trivial thing which really put my back up but seemed to blow over quickly enough – unusually it was nothing personal about her or I (she generally has a pop at me about my weight whenever possible) which probably helped.
Then Ady, Mum and I went to the nearby park with the children on their bikes for an hour or so. Davies rode really happily and easily all the way there and back aswell as all around the park. Tarly struggled a bit riding there but having cracked it again whilst in the park and rode all the way home again by herself – considerably slower than Davies but he couldn’t have ridden at all a year ago so she’s still doing pretty well. 🙂 Davies rode way ahead of me, waiting at each junction for me to catch up so we could cross together – I spy easier times ahead for walking to places with him a bit more mobile like that. Might even be persuaded to get a bike of my own from freecycle or a carboot sale!
We came home again for chocolate gingerbread and Ady sat doing a jigsaw with Tarly while Davies and I went and played on the piano for a bit (results of which can be seen below). The Tarly came in and he ‘played’ some music for her to do interpretive dancing to and I talked to them both about handstands and headstands and made a vague promise to show them how when I was more suitably attired and less scared that it is about 25 years since I last did any 😆
Tomorrow Malice is back at the vets first thing where I imagine she will be admitted for an eye removal operation and we have a pile of library books I’d quite like to read and get shipped back to the library – also further playroom sorting if the mood takes us.