I celebrated my 26th birthday again today, with three of my five 'A' list friends. (Liz is at home in Kenley doing the decorating, and Inge was hanging around in the cold waiting for her first born to get back from a ski-ing trip*.)

So Becky, Issy, Carolyn and I sat down to lunch as soon as Becky got here (the other two live in near-by villages, but Becky has to drive right across the country from Preston.

Starter
Antipasto, salad, olives, avocado and feta cheese dressing, and olive and basil bread rolls

Main Course
Mackerel with a Florentine sauce, new potatoes and mushrooms

Pudding
Creme brulée (made by me)
Sticky toffee cake and date slices (brought by Becky)
Chocolate birthday cake (made by Issy)

Cheese, biscuits and celery.

Coffee before while we were waiting for Becky, gallons of tea afterwards, and some very nice Italian red with the meal.

We talked all through the meal and for the rest of the afternoon just for once without any interruptions from men or kids (bless their cotton socks!). Quite a lot of the conversation was about Issy's and Becky's plans for their mother's 70th birthday party next week, and how much easier it would be if she just let them get on with it and didn't come up with helpful suggestions. They want to give their mother a good do, and apparently she keeps coming up with ideas to save them money, or - worse - to pay for the lunch herself. I am, rather surprisingly since I am Issy's and Becky's friend rather than Maureen's, invited, particularly as nearly everyone else is family.

Here they are with the cake
53rd Birthday (1)
This is my favourite photo taken when they were still adjusting three mature, but still reasonably trim bums onto a two seater sofa and before they were poised and smiling.
53rd Birthday
And here they are poised and smiling.

* Joel's School Ski-ing Trip: Why, instead of keeping parents hanging around for hours waiting for the bus to arrive don't they tell the children to use their mobiles to text/phone their parents when they get to Lincoln? Or, if all those mobiles used at once is more than the teachers can stand, have a pre-arranged system of contacting one lot of parents who each contact several more until all are informed that the bus is now about half-an-hour from home? This way Inge would have been able to come to lunch.

I asked Jess why she wasn't going since she has mentioned that she would like to try ski-ing. She replied that she didn't want to be stuck on a bus for hours and hours with all those anti-social psychos. "Surely," I said, "the staff would stop them getting out of hand?" "I meant the staff," she replied. Esther (Issy's baby) is also away on a ski trip from her school, while Hannah (Becky's baby) is in Rome with her friend Hannah and that Hannah's parents.