Helena's Birthday Weekend

Last Saturday marked Helena's birthday, one should never disclose the age of a lady, but she was .......!. So Friday night she, her boyfriend Sam and friend Noor drove down from t'up north to Mellish Towers in Bromley. Saturday morning Lawrie and Emma came down from Birmingham and Andrew and Gaew trekked the five miles from Beckenham and David is currently living at home. Stuart, a college friend of Helena also joined us for a special lunch.
Sam cooked the meal which followed the grand present opening.

Present opening

 

Sam and Noor busy in the kitchen preparing:

Deep fried poached eggs with roasted asparagus

Home made ravioli (four kinds) with a cream sauce

Chocolate sponge puddings filled with chocolate

Lunch, which started about 4pm was, like all family lunches, a rather protracted affair. We eventually finished about 9 pm. Then into the front room for more merriment (booze). At about 11pm the "youngsters" went of to a club while Julia and I retired to bed. Heaven only knows at what time they all returned.

Stuart, David, Andrew, Gaew, Helena, Lawrie (back of head!)

Sunday saw some unexpected excitement and an additional guest for dinner. Mary ,who is one of the more senior parishioners and a widow, collapsed  during Mass. The ambulance was called and I went with her to hospital. After a few hours of excellent attention, thank you Farnborough Hospital, I took her home, As she would have been by herself I asked her to our home for lunch. I am not sure if a lunch with 11 people was restful, but Mary seemed to enjoy it. It was a traditional Sunday roast and much enjoyed by all.

Helena, Barry, Noor, Emma, Mary, Julia, David. Lawrie. Stuart, Andrew, Gaew.

It seems strange that we go for some years without us all being together, then in the space of a few months we have two complete family gatherings. After lunch the party started to disperse. It was good weekend enjoyed by all. Although as we had some 9 people staying there was some hard work involved. Still it was worth it. It was good to be all together again. We mentioned to someone at church that sometimes it would be good to spend some time by ourselves as these gatherings were tiring. She told us that she had not seen her daughters for some twenty years. There are times when you just don't realise how lucky you are.

Sadly Lawrie and Emma will not be with us at Easter. All leave has been cancelled in the West Midlands Police Force as they are expecting some trouble at a march planned by the English Defence League. This is being opposed by an anti-Fascist Group who supposedly are in favour of freedom of speech. I just hope that we do not read or see on TV anything about violence during the marches. It always seems strange to me that these groups who all proclaim the defence of our rights have to violently oppose and try to stop each other from marching. Hopefully soon the sad man who calls himself prime minister will call an election and we have a chance to change the direction that the country is taking. They really are a dreadful bunch although sad to say the opposition is not that much better.