Mum's semi-surprise 60th birthday tea party..

After a fair few months of preparation, worry, boot sales and charity shops, the culmination of all our planning finally came to fruitition on January 3rd , the date of Mum's 60th tea party, her actual birthday being boxing day. The week leading up to it was carefully planned with mass baking between my shifts at work and I had to relent from our plan to not let mum get involved by asking if she'd mind doing the scones! Jo did some baking up in London, fab brownies and macaroons and even Dad baked a fantastic lemon drizzle cake. On the day, Jo and Stu hired a car and drove down and started setting up the Village Hall we'd hired, while Gwen and myself and Joan got down to making sandwiches.. then it was all hands on deck at the hall..the two lovely ladies above Gwen and Jill, were invaluable in being very practical while I ran around like a headless chicken worrying about the time and not knowing what job to start on next! They also became our 'tealadies' later on..The best bit was seeing all the tables set, all the tea sets we'd collected, tablecloths, cake stands, candlesticks, and all the other little bits..it just looked so lovely..and Jo and Stu had copied photos of mum when she was younger and found some old photo frames which were put on each table...

When people started arriving, it was a bit scary, but it all came together. Jo and Stu, Gwen and Jill, Sue, Joan, Hannah and Rosie all helped brilliantly...the idea of having tea seemed to go down really well, something we hadn't expected..and the consensus as people came in and out of the kitchen to fetch more supplies was that people seemed to be really enjoying it..which was the main thing...Stu had put together a great compilation of songs on his ipod which we played through speakers..and later on we all had a little boogie to some of mum's favourites...'I love it when you call' by The Feeling, 'Suspicious Minds' by Elvis...'Lost in France' by Bonnie Tyler (??!!!!) All in all a very enjoyable night... Happy Birthday Mother...

Lewis..

Welcome to the world Lewis and well done Liv...this little chap arrived 3 days early about 5 hours after I'd left Liv and Myles, spending a nice afternoon in the garden with them. He's gorgeous...

Loving Latitude....

A few pictures from a great weekend at Henham Hall in Southwold, the 3rd year of the Latitude Festival. The picture above is Sigur Ros, probably my highlight of the weekend..as were Elbow, Go-Team, Amadou and Mariam and Grinderman..These pictures were taken by Mr Passey, a housemate and friend of sister Jo..I forgot my camera..I'd never met Jo and Stu's friends from London, but they were lovely and it's the best I've felt in a long while..much needed music and mingling..other highlights were Simon Armitage who was as down to earth as imagined and very funny, Stewart Lee and the milkshakes/smoothies, literally chocolate snacks like jaffa cakes, hob nobs, chocolate orange , strawberry cheesecake blended up with milk and ice cream..superb!..roll on next year...

She laid a good egg...

R.I.P. Meave ...

It's been a while...

hello again, it's really been ages since I last wrote. Time flies and I was just about to start the new job...now its been nearly 3 months..

What can I say? I'm lucky to be somewhere where colleagues have been supportive and friendly from day one , also to feel that I've built up a good rapport with our tenants who have learning disabilities. On the downside..well..just being who you are, forever being 'down' or 'low', getting stuck in a rut, not believing in what's possible..or that your'e just not making enough effort.. these are the things that are a constant...and make me want to escape life right now ...totally or maybe just Japan..start somewhere new..where nobody knows you..but i guess you dont escape, not really..

we saw Julie Myerson, the author this week at a newly refurbished church in town, which is now a cafe, meeting place and a venue for an enterprise called Genesis which provides opportunities for people with learning disbilities to take part in all manner of creative activities ,and in this case sell them at the church. There is some fantastic stuff to purchase. Julie was talking to my old tutor on the access course I did at college some years ago, so it was a doubly interesting night. Julie was a great character, really engaging, someone who obviously loves books and wanted to be a writer from childhood. Her new book, focuses entirely on a group of children, but is aimed at adults. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Lots of cupcakes have been made recently!

Sadly, Maeve the hen went downhill rapidly..she hadn't been herself but had seemed content and eating hungrily out of our hands. The last few days was awful, for us to look at and no doubt awful for her..well, I hope she wasn't suffering too much. She was put to sleep.. a relief for everyone and her..she was a strong old girl and a sweet natured chicken, bless her.

Finished 'flowers for algernon' , a fantastic book and recommend to anyone, as also the new cd by 'Santogold', a real gem.

take care and hope to resume normal blogging!

Cranberry Cupcakes...

We've just finished this batch and they were rather tasty. I've noticed that like a good wine (she says tongue in cheek) they seem to taste even better a few days after they're out of the oven and have 'matured and settled' !!

Had an unexpected but welcome phone call last night and will now be starting my job as of Monday. This is good news..I'm not feeling as nervous as I thought I might, especially compared to the terror I used to feel at the prospect of an occupational therapy work placement which was part of my course. This used to involve weeks of worry prior to finding out where you were going, then weeks of worry after finding out and then slightly less worry while actually there! Some of this calmness is probably due to helping out at the Oxfam shop and getting back into a work routine and meeting fellow volunteers and customers..it has definately improved my confidence in relation to starting work again and I'd recommend it highly.

Speaking of the volunteers at the shop, one of the ladies, Sue, I have been on the shopfloor with on Tuesday afternoons left this week after over a year at the shop to start work in a store in town. She is really going to be missed I think. I used to really look forward to these afternoons as it was so good chatting to her and we had similar taste in films, televison and books so there was always plenty to talk about and she was just generally a very sweet person. This was also apparent on Tuesday, when a new volunteer started with us and Sue was able to put the new volunteer at ease straight away and she seemed genuinely sad that she wouldn't be working with Sue again. I'll be sad to stop working there also but it has been left open to see if it will work out when my shift pattern starts at the end of the month but somehow I don't think it will..