Dad’s 65th Birthday – A Discworld Adventure (by sarah)

It was my dad's 65th birthday (his actual birthday was the 3rd but what with all the well everything that we've been doing - we decided to post pone it!). My dad is a massive fan of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchette - I introduced him to them when I were back at university.

SO I themed his birthday. We had:

The luggage and Friends:

Wizard Hats and white chocolate stars:

I made one or two of them 🙂 If my Bro and his wife could have made it I was going to do chaos butterflies and Death cupcakes but as it is I already made far too much!

And of course we had the main cake - the Great Star Turtle A'Tuin rinding through space with the world on his back, held up by four elephants - who admittedly look like some sort of elephant/mouse cross bred.

Dad seemed very please even if we did have a clash of the culinary cultures over his macaroni cheese and fried onions (Alaric put them in the actual macaroni cheese which was great but as we had never had that before and the only thing like it had been a horrible celery in the macaroni cheese - we initially all reacted with horror which we tried to cover up as he had been cooking for ages making all the sauce and everything - poor Alaric). We had pear cider and opened the Cider Brandy Alaric's Step brother Simon got us.

Dad's reaction to the cake was great - he says he loves the elephants and the fact I put the mountains in too 🙂 The Luggages didn't not come out as well as I wanted but Jean who had been watching The Colour of Magic and The Hogfather with Ferfer came into the kitchen and exclaimed 'Mummy you've made Luggages!'

I think the box set of Discworld films was greatly appreciated by Dad as well 🙂

Brilliantly Big Birthday Bonanza BBQ, Banquet and Baffonary (by sarah)

Friday it all started with the arrival of the alien shroom

a.k.a. my father or Ferfer as he is better known. This was accompanied by the rest of my family as in my mum.

My bro and his wife all of whom got family snuggles 🙂

Jean had been preparing treats for the last few days 🙂

Which she forced people to eat - especially people with April birthdays

I'd been baking too.

Lots of DIY and work on the house was done then Saturday night more madness ensued with the arrival of friends who also had April birthdays - they bought yummy vegan cake with them 🙂

We ordered take away - I set the table up nicely - the 'new' table as in my grandmothers dinning table which had come up in my parents car on Friday. It has leaves that fold out to make it a big table - but there were now 11 people in the house so I went for buffet style.

Food arrived - a mix of pizza, chips, curry, and chinese food. Everyone was catered for 🙂

Including the baby

Aunty Michelle kept giving in and feeding her 🙂

The next day - with five birthdays to cater for we decided BBQ was the way to go 🙂

the neighbours bought round cake too as it was their easter celebration 🙂

Of course it had to be lit first

Then the celebrating began 🙂

My Bro on his birthday celebration 🙂

The weekend also saw scrabble playing

And Music!

A good time was had by all 🙂

p.s. almost forgot to mention the welding and papier mache that took place too!

Notye (by sarah)

SO I've had this idea of making Alaric pose as Gotye for photos but then this week I've had my younger cousins staying and the result is that we made a video of it!

It is a spoof of this Gotye song with elements of this cover by Walk Off The Earth. It is made with the laptop which had limitations but I think it's pretty good as a first film/music vid 🙂

Michelle’s Hen Do :) (by sarah)

My Brother is getting married next month so the last two weekends have seen the stage and hen dos! I am still awaiting Alaric to post about the stage 🙂

For the Hen Do we went to a hotel in London for a Murder Mystery Event involving Professor Bugle, Flossy the maid and Lady "Rochy", the dectective Sherlock Holmes and his arch nemisis Moriaty.

It was 1920's theme dress up and because it was her hen night Michelle ended up being part of the show 🙂 I did take video of the performance which I'll attempt to put up here soonly!

This was all over dinner in the lush hotel and was followed by a cheesy disco which we shared with Welsh Chemists 🙂

Mum and her Scooter (by sarah)

As some of you know Mum had an accident where her mobility scooter went backwards down a slope and crashed into a kirb. She fell scooter and all - I saw the horror on her face and got dad to hand me the baby so he could go to her. Jeany run up too her and was informing everyone that it was her Nanny etc...

This was Friday in Gloucester Docks - the dock security and the ambulance team where fantastic and between the four of them got mum up onto the stretcher and loaded into the ambulance - I spent most of the time in the car with the two girls as I couldn't really do much else. Once Jeany came back to the car I left her momentarily holding Mary whilst I told the security etc... that mum has brittle bone disease as Dad was in a bit of a flap. I then took mum's handbag and shopping back to the car.

People must have thought I was really strange but I knew mum would be panicking about her material and stuff and sure enough all she said was sorry and 'I think I've lost my buttons!'

They thought she had broken her hip but fortunatly she hadn't - it's all "just" soft tissue damage but she is pretty beaten up and the bruises and grazes look bad. She is having to use a zima frame to walk at the moment 🙁

Again the post code lottery was evident with the nhs - as mum was informed that if she lived here a stair lift and stuff would have already been put in her home - something the nhs back in Essex wont do.

The x-rays they did did show however that her heart and lungs have been badly damaged by the radiotherapy for the cancer treatment which sucks but I suppose is better than the alternative.

Sunday as the craft fayre I was supposed to be doing was canceled I took mum, dad and the girls to the local carvery were was spent about 4 hours watching the classic, vintage and kit cars going past on the round about - we sat outside and I took blankets and games for the girls.

Poor dad still ended up carrying all the food as though I am trying to use one crutch instead of two I found I simply didn't have the hand strength to carry the plates! But mum enjoyed her outing. She is in more pain today though than she was when she came home from the hospital and bruising is still appearing on her.

Of course because fundimentally she is ok and will just take time to mend it is funny to say she crushed her mobility scooter but it wasn't at the time :/