My Birthday!

Last Saturday (sorry for the delayed posting - its been a busy week!) was my birthday - I was 31, as Mrs Southgate pointed out on many occasion!! : )

Anyway, my blog starts about 6 weeks prior to that when Lizet asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday. I told her, I'd quite like a night in with the gang, a curry and to play some games - hopefully Trivial Pursuit DVD edition which I was hoping I might get for my birthday. "That's fine" said Lizet, "come to our house and we'll invite the gang - in fact leave it to me and Ruth, we'll sort it all out" .... at which point I promptly burst in to tears (no surprises there!) and sobbed "no-one's ever arranged a birthday party like that for me!"

So the guests were invited and I arrived at Robert and Lizets at the appointed time to find that there was no curry because Lizet and Ruth had spent all afternoon cooking a 3 course meal!! Everyone was in on it! I'd even asked Helen on the Friday night if she'd ordered the curry for us to share - she had! good job I didn't ask what we were having!

Well, the curry was a distant memory as we sat down to soup, followed by chicken in a tomato/pepper/bbq sauce with veg (lovely carrot batons Ruth!) and then Nigella's hot chocolate puddings. In between main and dessert we played pass the parcel and, probably not surprisingly, I won!

Little bit of cream with that Andy?

The whole evening was fantastic, by far the best birthday surprise ever!

I just want to say a HUGE thanks to all of my sneaky, but very lovely friends for coming and for making it a night to remember! Especially big thanks to Ruth and Lizet for doing all the organising and cooking.

You're all great and I'm very blessed to have you all xx

Happy Birthday Ella

Last weekend was a whole weekend full of birthdays - mum on Friday, me on Saturday and the LOVELY ELLA on Sunday. Ella wanted to have her family with her for her birthday so we all went to Jane and Ian's. Here a snap of the birthday girl xx

Happy Birthday Ma Starkings

Today is Mum's Birthday. Can't tell you how old she is, but thought I'd post some pictures of the lovely lady herself : ) I'm sure she'll thank me!!

Take a look and post a reply for her. Mum is a big blogging fan, she reads all the blogs and so she'll definitely read your messages to her.

Guess Who?

Ella took most of the Mother's Day pictures, unfortunately a couple went a bit wrong!! Can you guess who they are?

Here's a picture of the photographer herself with Uncle Andy

Mother's Day

Sunday was Mother's day so all the family went to Andy, Ruth and Kate's house for lunch. It was very lovely, thanks Ruth - I'm sure Andy did a little something to help! ; )

Our Hosts

Doesn't Kate look pretty : )

After lunch, while the boys washed up, us girls played Dutch Blitz... all except for mum who found something else to do : )






For those of you who are Dutch Blitz fans, I promised Ruth I'd post the scores - even if I did suffer a terrible defeat!! (I'll win next time at Spring Harvest!)

1st place - RUTH "Dutch Blitz Queen" Starkings - score 82

2nd place - JANE - score 65

3rd place - ooh it was me! I thought I came last - score 18

4th place - DOT (only 6 points between me and Dot though!) - score 12

And to finish ... a picture of all the mums and their children, young and old : )

An evening out with Mrs Hughes

Sue and I went to see Music and Lyrics last night.




It was very good, we both really enjoyed it - a nice feel good film with the added bonus of Hugh Grant : ) It had some very good one liners in, well they kept us amused anyway! I think I'd give it a 9/10 - what about you Sue?





Afterwards we went for Chinese - was very nice and then, after much chatting (you can imagine!) we headed home.

Really lovely, much needed night out - Thanks Sue xxx

Red Nose Day 2007

Yesterday was Red Nose Day!

Carol and I were determined to enter into the spirit of it, so armed with our newly purchased Red Noses (complete with stickers to decorate your nose and give it personality!!) we managed to persuade a few others to join in too!

Happy Birthday Tim

Yesterday Tim reached the grand age of 11!

Where have 11 years gone!?! I remember holding Tim as a baby - but there are no baby photo's on this post. We'll save them till you 18 T : )

You're never too old for a bundle with dad!

Happy Birthday Tim

London Calling

On Monday, Lizet and I went on a girls day out to the "Big Smoke".

We had an excellent day - talked lots, made very good use of our tube tickets and did plenty of walking (mainly up and down floors in Harrods!!).

Oh and we met the Queen!!

Covent Garden performers - they were very good

Thanks Lizet for a really lovely day : )

Tulips

Andrea sent me tulips yesterday.

The reason I post them? They were all triple budded stems!

Interesting and very lovely. Thanks Andrea

Helen's Surprise Party

Saturday night we went to Andrew and Sue's for a surprise party for Helen. Helen had absolutely no idea what was going on and was looking forward to a quiet evening showing off her holiday pictures! Little did she know!

Here are a couple of photo's of the birthday girl.

Annual Leave - Hurrah!!!

Well, I'm on annual leave until next Wednesday, a whole 4 days off work (6 if you include the weekend) and I'm loving it! I've lots planned so will fill you in as I go!

Thursday was spent at the hair dressers being de-grayed and then shopping with a break for coffee and chat with Ruth. Then a few of us from work went to the Belgium Monk in the evening for dinner. It was a very lovely evening with friends, but the food only gets a 4/10! Sorry Belgium Monk, but we won't be hurrying back : (

Friday was very busy!

I spent the afternoon with Ruth and Kate before Andy arrived home.

Ruth, Helen and I went to see Chicargo at the Theatre Royal.

It was an excellent performance, we would all highly recommend it.

Afterwards we went back to Andy and Ruth's for take away. Steve and Jen are home this weekend for Steve "Vincent" Miller's birthday : )

Check out Paul's foot wear, his toes were cold!!

Kate got up for a cuddle with Steve and Jen and chat with Paul

Then after much suspense Steve finally revealed who he has asked to be his bestman for his wedding.

Drum role please - Annie's World is very pleased to reveal that he has chosen not one, but two bestmen - Andy and Paul.
Good choice Steve - personally, I can't think of two better chaps for the job : )

That was Friday - check back to see what I've got planned for the rest of my leave : )

Blicking

On Sunday we went to Blickling Hall for a very lovely roast lunch followed by a walk around the grounds. Here are some snaps!

Lord Harley surveying the estate!

Ready and raring to go!

Paul felt a little under the weather, but he soldiered on : )

What is this?

Some of us opted for other methods of transport when the going got tough!

Very nice afternoon though and we can definitely recommend the roast dinners : )