BIRTHDAY EVE, BIRTHDAY ,BIRTHDAY BOXING DAY BEFORE AND BEYOND!!!

My friend in Phillys porch I won't be sitting on till later this year, as a change from pics of the seaside, which no doubt will come later!

I'm sitting in the garden writing this enjoying the wonderful spring sunshine. My legs are seeing daylight for the first time for months, in that I've got a skirt on and not jeans.

I've got the birdsong around me, and the sound of the water flowing out of the water feature as it hits the stones below. The garden has loads of wonderful daffodils fluttering in the breeze. It has to be said those first few lines of the Wordsworth poem, Ode to a Daffodil always makes me smile.

And in the absence of the sea this is a good place to be....... However tomorrow.... I'm going to the seaside.

It is the start of my two week Birthday celebrations. You may think that a little excessive, but I like having a Birthday, and it seems that if it's only celebrated on one day, it's gone to quick.

So lunch time tomorrow I drive to Exeter for the night to stay with Max for the night. Which no doubt will involve lovely conversation, good food and cause I'm not driving a glass or two (or even three!!!)

After breakfast on Sunday I get back in the car to drive for another couple of hours, all the way down to St Ives, in Cornwall, to stay with my mate Liz, who I've known for 24 years, who has just moved there. She's been waiting till her children were old enough, and then like I want to, she has left home!! She is living in the moors above the town, with views of the sea. No doubt I will be very envious, and it will make me very restless as a result. So more drinking required here!

Then starting on the return journey on Tuesday and getting as far as Bovey Tracy, the place I want to live, to stay with Jenny and her husband for a couple of days. And this of course means more drinking, just as well I've got three bottles of fizz to take with me..

Leaving for the homeward trek on Thursday via London, which is a hundred miles or so out of the way, but I get to pick up Kit, to bring him back home in time for my Birthday on Good Friday. Lunch is booked in a restaurant and cause I took advantage of a special offer they were running, I get a free bottle of champagne to drink with our meal.

Saturday there are three social events going on, I get a facial first thing in the morning, followed by lunch with my sister and niece,the alcohol level may be reduced here to one spritzer!!! As I have to save myself for the night when I get to go for a curry with the wonderful Queen Vixen and the delightful Trousers. And they are coming to me, so I can have yet another drink!!!

Then I think I have a couple of days off, with Sunday lunch thrown in first, before my next lunch date on the Wednesday, and then dinner with other mates in the evening. Then if I'm very lucky I'll get to have lunch on Thursday with Wakeup. So taking me to the 17th, and I finally will have time in this one mad social whirl to go and do the weeks shop, and get back to what passes for normal round here.

So that's my two week birthday, which I recommend to anyone who thinks they deserve to celebrate and celebrate and celebrate with as many people as they can give a hug to!

I know all this lot makes me sound like a complete alcoholic, but this is going to be just such a lovely long celebration being with friends and family that a couple of glasses a night for a while isn't going to hurt me. Specially as I haven't had any booze for a week, and probably won't have any after all my birthday celebrations for a sometime!!!

But what I will have had, is time with people I love very much, the only person missing from this equation is my long term friend in Philly, but I get to talk to her tonight, and we are planning my jaunt to hers in the summer. So although that isn't enough, as I miss her, it will do, as I know it won't be long til I'm sitting on her porch.

And it has to be said I've never been 55 before, and somehow getting to my decade and a half seems symbolic somehow.

On a different subject...... fundraising. The school now has the information to inform the young people as to why they are having a non uniform day and I've got to go and do a school assembly to explain why I want the money for the Raise the Roof Fund. Also my friend and I are organising a swishing party, that is a clothes shop evening. And I'm going to read Tarot cards for money for the first time ever to raise some more funds. I've never charged anyone before, so this may have a different feel to it. But I have done the cards for most of the people who are coming to the party. So they know what to expect and the standard of the reading.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and week without me and I'll be back soon.
xx