Late September and early October is birthday time in our family - all 4 of us within 12 days. This year was a bit special as Paul and I were 70, our elder son 37 and our younger son 35, and a new arrival, another grandson, was expected daily. The birthday festival begins with me, rapidly followed by our younger son on September 28th, and our elder son on October 1st. Paul completes the sequence a few days later. So we decided on a party to celebrate all the birthdays, on Sunday September 29th.
Our younger son had originally agreed to arrive on Friday 27th, but at the last minute decided to break the journey down here in order to visit friends in Birmingham, so the arrival was put back until Saturday morning. (This gave us more time to assemble more plates and cutlery for 20 or more party guests.) Unfortunately, the poor things got caught in a 12 mile tailback on the M25, and didn't arrive until nearly 3 pm on the Saturday, starving and nearly deaf from the shrieks of a very bored small child in the back, and in a panic because my son had invited some London friends to dinner in my house and needed to shop and start cooking!
We shopped in shifts, so our grandson didn't have to get into the hated car again, and I needed to collect a lot of the the party food which had been pre-ordered from Mr Waitrose between 4 and 6 when they shut! Somehow we fitted it all in, and we arrived back at 5, just in time to welcome the first guests. The dinner was a success, though somewhat delayed by my sister being very late - she fell asleep after lunch and set off late, only to discover there were no trains from her station because of engineering work, and no replacement buses either!
The three children had to be fed first while we waited for her, and then we were able to enjoy several different curries which my son had cooked for the 9 adults, including a special vegetable curry for the two vegetarians! We can't get 9 people round our small dining table, but fortunately we had my elder son's dining table - it was rather too big for their kitchen, so it's now in our garage until needed for a larger house, and they have a smaller table, thanks to our visit to Ikea the previous weekend. After the guests had left, we were all extremely grateful to the dishwasher which gave sterling service while I prepared the salads for the next day. Still it must have been a rather confusing birthday for my son!
The day of the party dawned bright and sunny, so our party guests were able to enjoy the garden, and tennis and croquet was played by many of the younger guests. I have to say we have so far been very fortunate with party weather, this is the 4th party we've had in the last 10 years, and all have enjoyed lovely weather. We ended the day with a beautiful array of cards and some very pretty plants displayed on our window sill (and many more cards received since this was taken)
not to mention some delightful bottles of wine, and some delicious looking chocolates (not on display - we intend to enjoy them ourselves!)
One of the cards, which you can't see here, is a small version of a painting done in Norfolk by the husband of one of Paul's cousins.
I really like this picture, with it's haunting and desolate atmosphere; he's very talented.
We woke quite early on Monday, as my sister needed to be driven to the station - some people had to go to work! While Paul was making coffee and I was sitting up in bed reading email, I got a phone call from my elder son to say that we were grandparents for the second time! He and his wife had decided not to come to the party, as the baby was overdue and might make his appearance at any moment, and they felt unsafe being an hour's drive away from the hospital. This turned out to be just as well, as our new grandson started on his way into the world while the rest of the family were all partying at around 3.30 in the afternoon!
Nothing much happened at first, so the prospective parents waited quietly at home, and went into hospital at around midnight. Unfortunately, the hospital didn't want them there, saying they had come in far too early and it would be 12 to 24 hours yet, so they went home again around 2am. This mistaken information meant it was an unplanned home delivery, the baby very nearly had to be delivered by my son himself! They rang for the ambulance just before 4am, and apparently during the 20 minute wait, they both held the baby back - it doesn't bear thinking about.
My daughter-in-law was so relieved when my son went to let the ambulance men in that she got off her side and onto all fours, and the baby arrived just in time for the paramedic who was running up the stairs to catch him! They rang us just after 7am, after the midwife had made a home visit and they were looking forward to a much needed few hours sleep.
I don't know how long it will take them to get over the trauma of the birth, my daughter-in-law says she probably woke all the neighbours with her screams. Poor things, they must both have been terrified. When they finally got the emergency response, they had several First Response Units in fast cars, including that of the Trauma Team, as well as an ambulance in case she needed to go to hospital. Half an hour later, they had the emergency midwife as well, for the clearing up. All these vehicles had to play Tetris outside, because their very narrow road comes to a dead end outside their house, there is no turning circle and the street is always completely crammed with cars. So I imagine nobody in the street got much sleep, what with the screams, the sirens, the forest of flashing blue lights, and all the reversing of vehicles going in and out.
After all that excitement, we left them all to have a well- deserved sleep while we took our younger son and family to Chartwell so we could run the legs off our grandson in the hopes he would sleep in the car on the way home, and so his parents could stretch their legs in a walk in the nearby woods.
There's a lot in Chartwell to appeal to small boys - there's a very long steep slope for rolling down, for a start.
It doesn't look steep in my photo, but it is, and as you can see, it's really beautiful. A lot of rolling was done, resulting in a muddy boy and Papi - the grass was damp with dew.
There are also geese and two beautiful black swans, both of interest to small boys. We had to snatch him away from the swans, there is a notice warning that they are aggressive and they were both bigger than he is!
You can often see him with his favourite cuddly toy, 'Baby', tucked under his arm like this, he reminds me so much of my elder son who never went anywhere without Snoopy, carried in just the same way!
We paid the obligatory visit to the Churchill statue, and my grandson was too terrified of Sir Winston's face to sit on the statue's knee; he was happy to sit on Lady Churchill's knee though, while my son sat on Sir Winston, so we have a lovely photo.
They set off home after lunch, and we started on the laundry festival!
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