Hello there

I hope this will be the last of my birthday for a while. Eight of us went out for a fabulous meal at the Jitlada Thai restaurant which never fails to deliver. So here I am with my very dear friends.

That is me with Elaine my dear friend of 35+ years we worked out, and Trish who also features in my New Year line-up.

This is Sally, my artist friend who is a constant inspiration and support in my artistic attempts.

Time for the  main course.

This is Tod - my husband on the left with Sally's husband Iain.

and John and Dave, who were at college with Tod - 

It was through Dave and Elaine that I met Tod so I have known them longer than him!

So the final course - that is a carved melon in the centre there.

So thank you to all my family and friends for a wonderful week.

Normal services will be resumed shortly.

Well, well, well

Today is my birthday, I won't beat about the bush, I am sixty, and now officially an Old Age Pensioner. I am lucky to have been born before April 1st 1950, which means I am amongst the last group of women to collect her OAP at 60. It is a strange feeling, and although I wanted it to pass without too much fuss, it seems as if  a busy week has been arranged. Amongst the cards and gifts I received this morning was a big parcel from my sister. I had lots of crafty bits, buttons, felt, a 1950 news paper, and this...

Oh, I thought another art journal, great my old one is nearly full - but when I opened it up...

(Yes that is vintage embroidered card in the front - I had another as a card)

I will share with you a few of the pages of this amazing book my sister has put together.

First there were the two branches of my family tree, which she has researched extensively, here's one...

...that is my mum on her grandmother's lap, then my early years...

"Who is that gorgeous baby?"

1950's holidays

That's the 60's and 70's

and friends have added their 'bits'

I was moved to tears by the amount of work Janet has put into this, completely choked - and Mr T has played his part too. There have been a few sneaky phone calls going on.

I've been taken out to lunch by Mr T and on returning found a bottle of wine and a card by the front door from a friend and a lovely vase of flowers has just been delivered from my family.

I consider myself very lucky and although I wanted to pass the day quietly, how lovely it is to be thought of by so many. We are eating out with friends at the weekend, and we have two visits to our favourite venue, The Stables in Wavendon this week. Last night we saw the legendary guitarist Peter Green (of Fleetwood Mac fame) and Friends who delivered a blinding set of blues rock which set the heart dancing and tomorrow we see Eliza Carthy an English fiddle playing folk singer of the electric kind, who we saw last year and enjoyed.   So there may not be a lot of art going on on this blog for a few days!!!

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I also want to remember my Mum, who we lost in November 2006 who I miss sharing this day with. And my sisiter's husband Martin who died on this day in 1997, who we can now sadly smile about and congratulate him on his bad timing!

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Saturday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVE

...not that I think he is a follower of my blog, but Dave is a friend of 30+ years and of my husband for even longer. He reaches a significant birthday today and so we thought he deserved a bit of effort. MrT compiled a couple of CDs with a selection tracks that were number ones on his birthday from the fifties to present and we managed to find enough photographs of him - some of them very fuzzy, taken over the years to make the CD covers. Dave is a serious collector - books art, music, anything stylish and iconographic so I though I would compile a six decade set of images and make a zig-zag collage.  This took me rather a long time and almost became a chore instead of an act of love. I found  the images on Google, down loaded them and then printed them, cut them out and then assembled the collage. I made card front and back covers and covered them with a psychedelic print I also found on good old Google images. I enjoyed the finishing off process and I am sure he will enjoy the the gift. We won't be seeing him for a while and have no idea what he is doing today, having a big celebration, or keeping his head down, but either way we hope it is a good one.

Click the pic for a close-up view.

How far back do you remember?