Not the birthday, yet

Today we had the first small party in honour of Mum's 102nd birthday on 5th.

Just like yesterday, there were people who were imaginatively breaking the No Presents dicktat! Margaret (across the road) knows that Mum likes chocolate eclairs, especially the ones from M & S. She turned up at lunchtime with two eclairs she had decorated, (see extra).

Christine (who came later) brought an enormous ginger cake ready for Tuesday. It is soft, squelchy and smells delicious.

We had a lovely afternoon with a good number of friends arriving and scoffing my cooking. I'm pleased to say that it all went down well.

The birthday cake is a carrot cake (see extra) and I bought indoor sparklers to light instead of candles. They were terrible. It was almost impossible to light them and the ones that did light, produced a few feeble sparkles then went out. (See extra!)

I must say that we laughed ourselves silly as more people tried to assist me, to no avail.

My blip is a card made by Julie, our carer. She is very artistic. The painted stones (Oscar and Daisy) are made with stones from Marsden Beach, near Sunderland. Aren't they brilliant?

I had great help from Margaret (across the road) and Joy (down Doctor's Lane). Joy took over from Margaret as main helper and had loads of dishes washed before I had time to see what she was doing.