Birthday wrap up

The birthday celebrations that started on Friday continued through until Sunday.

Thank you to all who sent their best wishes.

Here's my 'capture the moment/treasure the moment' account of the weekend 

no birthday is complete without cake - thank you to Papa for this one.

Sibs's birthday was a school day and she took the obligatory chocolate muffins to share with her class at morning tea break. The number requested kept going up and up...at one point she wanted to take in 45! We compromised and after ensuring that her classmates were covered there were a few left over for a couple of special teachers and friends and I think the Principal enjoyed one with his morning coffee.

Osaka Japanese

On Friday evening Sibs invited a couple of friends to join us for dinner in a local Japanese Dining Bar. She took great joy in ordering all our food and drink and sitting at the head of the table. Relishing the fact that she was 10 - double digits! It was finished off with gelato on the way home.

Max Brenner

On Saturday morning Nana, Sibs and I took a stroll around Portside and just happened to find ourselves at Max Brenner...as you do! This is chocolate heaven. There was a cruise ship in port and we people watched with the best of them.

Then it was back home to begin preparations for the next installment - the party.

table set for a Jane Austen style dinner

 Over the years Sibs has had a butterfly party, a rainbow party, a disco party, a pizza one, a tea party - nothing too challenging really. This year she pondered for quite a while about what kind of party it was going to be and just couldn't make a decision between two things. So why not go for both?  It started with a Jane Austen theme...

we used the old  Bridgwood China

Fruit punch was served when they arrived and Papa was the butler. He did a sterling job! The table was set for four girls to enjoy a proper sit down roast dinner with chicken and beef and Yorkshire Puddings (that they found very interesting). It was all going to plan and they were having fun pretending to be little ladies until one of them went to cut a brussel sprout, accidentally missed, and her peas went flying across the table and onto the floor! Cue, lots and lots of giggles...

After a dessert of trifle, they changed head space (and thankfully rooms) and it became a One Direction party! Yes, this is the wonderful multi dimensional, glorious complexity of my girl! My ballet loving, rugby loving daughter is a fabulous mix of interests...

One Direction is a relatively new interest in this house and she received a tour DVD from her aunt and uncle for her birthday and the girls bounced and jumped (yes, straight after trifle!) and screamed to it.

the fruit punch was good....but not that good!

That was a good time to open the bubbly!

A little while later the cake was presented with candles and sparkles and we all toasted the Birthday Girl.

The merriment continued with a sleepover, breakfast and morning tea on Sunday.

just in case we needed more cake on Sunday morning!

Another year, another birthday, another set of photos for the memory box.

I hope that Sibs continues to have this amazing zest for life.

 That she keeps embracing different interests; 

that's she's comfortable to be who she is. 

We love her dearly for it...

Birthday

Breakfast in bed is a once a year treat on your birthday if you live in this house, and Sibs waited patiently for hers this morning. I was aware of her tip toeing past our room a few times to check on progress...but when I got up to prepare her tray she was pretending to be asleep under the covers.

I will never tire of seeing her beaming face when we enter her room singing "Happy Birthday". She gets a bilingual version - I sing it to her in Welsh and her Dad sings it in English. Lucky it's the same tune!

Then it's a few presents in bed before we all go downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast.

We have a weekend of celebrating this wonderful girl who is so precious in our lives.

Penblwydd Hapus Sibs

Caru ti i'r lleuad a nol....a mwy!

x

Family Treasures

A box of goodies arrived here this week. 

A box filled with precious things that once graced the tables of my family some generations ago.

Bridgwood china dinner service

My lovely mum had wrapped and sent over some treasures that were gathering dust in her attic so that I could have the pleasure of owning a little piece of the past. 

I remember some of it....

Duchess tea set 'Rosebud'

 This delicate little tea cup and saucer above belonged to my grandmother. It's such a pleasure to drink out of it. I used it for my evening cup of tea a couple of nights ago and I was transported right back to my grandparents kitchen....
I remember the tea pot that they used and the tea caddy (never tea bags), the milk that came in a bottle from the milkman, the exact cupboard where the biscuit barrel was kept , even where the not so secret chocolate supply was hidden in the pantry! It's amazing the power of one little object on the memory.

I don't recall this exact plate, but I do remember being on holiday in Dorset  as a child and visiting the Poole Pottery shop. I bought a small china dolphin brooch....I wonder where that went? I have a memory of a few bright orange and mustard yellow pieces in our house - very 70's!

Royal Albert 'Blossom Time'

 This beautiful set dates back earlier than the 1970's, and I should do a bit of research and find out when it was produced. I love the fact that the handles of the little tea cups are so small that you can't fit your finger through and have to pinch it - very lady like.

This is just marked 'Staffordshire' and is extremely delicate.

Sibs is convinced that some of this china is from the Jane Austen era! 

Denby 'Natural Blue'

Then to finish off - I also got some new Denby cups, saucers and plates for everyday use.

Now I have to find some space to store and display all this gorgeous stuff!

And in other news....Twmff is still recuperating. He alternates between resting in the sunshine on top of the desk in the study and escaping to the linen cupboard. He has a little pillow on the desk and his own mat in the cupboard....not spoilt at all then?? He's being a little trouper and takes his medicine daily and there is some improvement. His rather pathetic hopping on three legs is now more of a limp. 

Escape to the country

Well, well, I haven't been here for a while....

I thought it was a couple of weeks since I last wrote a blog post, but it's actually three weeks...

There's no real reason - nothing dramatic, nothing even vaguely interesting as to why I suddenly stopped. Just one of those things...life getting in the way; a bit of Winter sickness; I think there might have been a few days of Internet connection trouble and hey what do you know three weeks has passed.

So, it's a start to another week, some Monday morning chores have been completed and I just had the urge to sit a moment and fire up the old laptop and check in.

Let me share what we did weekend before last.

We escaped to the country, and spent a couple of nights in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere.

It's about an hour and a half from Brisbane, up and down a windy mountain road and then 8km down a dirt track.....but so worth the drive. Talk about peaceful. There were no sounds apart from the wildlife. A fabulous place to relax and switch off - quite literally as there was no phone or Internet connection and no TV...bliss.

The accommodation is a four bedroom, two bathroom cabin style house with predominantly hand made furniture.The dining table is an enormous slab of polished wood. It's rustic but at the same time comfortable. The bed linen, pillows and the towels provided are good quality (which is important in my book, so no mocking!)

There is a well stocked kitchen and pantry with most of the pots and pans that you need and of course an outside bbq and fire pit and acres of space.

The kids had a ball! Whilst it's not quite a farmstay - the owners (who live in a property next door) were so obliging and gave Sibs and her cousin a bit of a free reign to roam and collect eggs from the chooks, pick up the lambs named Tim and Tam, and walk Rusty the pony.

Skippy the little kangaroo came to visit and bounced around and kept a check on us and the alpacas kept a very close eye on the dog.

I have a feeling we'll be returning to Hollow Log Country Retreat. Web site link - HERE, Facebook page - HERE (Their Facebook page actually gives a better idea of the place and you'll see some photos of our weekend taken by Leonie the owner)

So since coming back, Sibs has been away to school camp and Twmff the cat missed her like crazy. He moped around the house whimpering and in the mornings cried at her bedroom door. He's since done something to his leg  and is now limping and hopping around the place so this afternoon he's off to the v-e-t. (I have to whisper - he's lying right here!)

This is the sight next to me right this moment - Twmff being the little invalid on a pillow in the sun in the study and Modlen stealing his food!

 Happy Monday