Catching up

Date: 03 June 2010 16:04:01

A huge thank you to everyone who made comments congratulating us on our 25th Wedding Anniversary. I appreciate the fact that so many people took the time to do so.

We had a lovely party. My mum and MiL came over on Wednesday 26th - 25th was our actual anniversary. We celebrated with steak-frites and a mention on Radcliffe & Maconie (while we were doing the ironing!!!) Then my niece and her "petit ami" arrived on Friday. Everybody helped get things sorted. On Friday we decorated our big downstairs room with streamers, and silver stars, as well as some balloons. These were popular with the children, and at the end of the evening we'd had to take them all down to satisfy the kids!

I'd asked people to bring food &/or drink, but I thought I'd better supply something. So I made big bowls of hummus, aubergine caviare and guacamole, plus a courgette tart, a salami tart and a vegetarian pizza my niece and MiL are vegetarians, so I thought I ought to make sure there was something for them!). We had a huge pot of punch, which Niece and I made (much merriment ensued from the tasting thereof, as we were making it.) as well as bottles of kir. I made a fruit cake which MiL iced beautifully, but we didn't eat that on the day, there being a surfeit of sweet and sticky stuff.

[caption id="attachment_364" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Anyone for cake?"][/caption]

People started arriving at 5.00 - our first guests were a bit uncomfortable, I think, as we homed in on them a bit. But as folk started to arrive it got easier - for them! I rushed round like a mad thing for about 2 hours, meeting and greeting. I kept pouring myself a glass of punch, putting it down and then losing it! After a while I started to relax and all-in-all I think it was a successful party. Certainly the best we've had - usually our parties are staid affairs where few people turn up. We must have had over 50. The children all went upstairs to watch "La-Haut" ("Up" to the English speakers.) - apparently it was watched three times before they moved onto "Shark Tales".

[caption id="attachment_367" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Out in the courtyard"][/caption]

One of the best things was when M brought George!!! She was very late as D, her husband, got held up at work, but she wanted to come round with George! He arrived in a basket, and was very well behaved, considering it was his first outing. I'm afraid I got so wrapped up in George that I neglected our guests!

[caption id="attachment_363" align="aligncenter" width="224" caption="George came to the party!"][/caption]

I forgot to take many photos. Never mind. It was lovely to see so many people, both French and English, and to spend time with them. We'd invited people we didn't know very well as well, so it was nice to get to know them a little better. I'll feel happier inviting them for a meal now...

***

Other than that, we've not done much. I'm finding myself spending too long on t'internet reading blogs by "SAH Moms" (that is, Stay At Home Moms) who seem to have huge families, but have plenty of time to do very impressive crafts - remaking of thrift store garments, sewing/knitting/crocheting amazing things, throwing together a skirt in less that 2 hours...or paper crafts, such as scrapbooking. I wonder how on earth they have time to do such intricate things...and then realised they probably don't spend hours on end reading other people's blogs and thinking "I wish I had the time to do that..."! But why do so many of these talented people seem to be LDS? Is there something about the Mormon church that only allows craftily talented people to join?! I pretend to myself that I'm looking for inspiration, but most of the time I'm just ...what? relaxing? wasting time? I don't know. I enjoy doing it, so if you enjoy doing something is it really "wasting time"?

For those who want to see what I am talking about, here are a few examples:

This Mom makes bread - before breakfast

This lady is scarily good at finding second hand goodies - and then doing amazing things with them!

This is another "I made this in 2.5 seconds" person. How do they do it?!

I love randomly clicking on links from blogs/websites...I've been taken to some fascinating (and some scary!) sites that way!