mother

It was my mother's 70th birthday yesterday so we celebrated with a little family party at my house which she loved. It's still very hard for her to enjoy anything very much without my father being around. She still misses him desperately. However, we did what we could and sparkled up the house with balloons and candles and flowers and cake and champagne and surrounded her with all five grandchildren who range in age from one to nearly twenty one and I think she had a really lovely time. Quite a significant gap there between the grandchildren - one won't go to bed and the other won't get up. On the one hand she was trying to stop her teeny weeny one year old granddaughter from falling over and hurting herself because she's just learnt to walk and on the other she was trying to stop her 20 year old grandson from falling over and hurting himself because he's had too much to drink. Anyway, the thing that amused her the most was the rather boring stripy wrapping paper my sister in law bought which when opened on the inside had lots of naked men:- We danced to our family anthem Pata Pata and mixed up all the ages - which I LOVE doing - my children getting on down in the kitchen with me and not minding dancing next to their mother - it is truly an honour to have somehow passed that test (even if they're sniggering to each other behind my back). Here is my son's birthday message to my mother - not sure she was particularly happy with her size or indeed her hairstyle:- and here is my brother celebrating the fact that there was yet more wine in the fridge:-