get together

All in all we did have an enjoyable family Christmas. Alice, my daughter, played nurse when I wasn't feeling well and she came good helping with the Christmas dinner. As you can see from the photo, Alice is proud to show the roast vegetables she cooked, a la 'Jamie's Family Christmas'.

Today Ashley and I had lunch at Pizza Express thanks to the efforts of Claire at Being a Mummy  who organised a free meal for local bloggers. It was really nice to meet Kirsty ,   Hannah , Lisa  and especially Claire and her lovely children.

My sister and her family came to visit us, for the day, on Friday. We only manage see each other about twice a year. We had a lovely day and exchanged birthday gifts. There are 364 days between our birthday so for one day we are the same age! During the day I had time to teach my sister and niece how to crochet a necklace. They were fast learners and within a couple of hours they had created really pretty necklaces, the photo is of the one my sister made.

I can't let this momentous event go by, HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY KIM. The wheel chair was just for the day to help the old timer get around!

I went to the Aboyne Lodge School Summer Fair yesterday looking to buy raffle tickets for their quilt. It's 10 years since Alice left the school but there are still tracers of her on the wall mural that she helped to paint (don't you just love children's drawings?). Ashley came with me, he left 13 years ago, and said memories came flooding back. It all still looked familiar the little house in the nursery playground was still there. Even Leanne was still on the food stall, I calculate she must have been helping out for over 16 years, give that women a long service medal!

Yesterday I had a very pleasant morning with Susie and Jacky, we decorated cupcakes. Jackie is going to make her daughter's cupcake 'wedding cake' and wanted some ideas for the individual cakes. We had a play with all the decorations Jacky had bought, some worked and some didn't in the end we settled on a few designs. Jacky photographed the cakes and will recreate them just before the wedding, making about 25 in each design. And our reward for this hard work was a lovely lunch cooked by Jacky.

Alice has been home from Uni for about a week now, on Good Friday we went for a family lunch at L'Italiana, situated in French Row near the clock tower. We enjoyed the basic Italian fare, the service was good and we were pleasantly surprised how reasonable the bill was, we would go there again.

We went to a 50th birthday party last night and I thought you might like to see the cupcake idea Sue, the birthday girl, created. I was very tempted to rearrange the 5 to a 6! Can you imagine the heat all those candles generated?

This evening I went to a jewellery party. The jewellery was made by the host, Deborah. All the money raised will go to a project in Nairobi,Kenya. To find out more about this charity go to /www.seedsowing.co.uk/ 

Gus dressed to meet those trick or treaters! He looks so scary or do I mean scared. Had a girls get together at Mary's house. She was over from Sweden for a few days. Mary's daughter Rose had arranged a surprise lunch for her. When we all arrived she was filling a skip in the drive. Mary got cleaned up and Rose made a lovely lunch which included a very tasty French onion soup. Mary's house has been rented while she was in Sweden so it was a bit short of furniture except for a very stylish sofa she had shipped over from Sweden. It was so comfy.