EMILIA’S BIRTHDAY
Two celebrations in one day seems a bit excessive, but celebrate we did. The birthday girl had made her own birthday cake and the family at large had prepared salads fit for a king, laid a very attractive table and generally been “ready to party” immediately. It is hard to believe that 3 years have passed since she and her friend Izzy came to stay with me at the end of their gap year travels … Izzy graduated the previous day for the first of several scheduled degrees and it was lovely to meet her proud parents at last.
Emilia, now 22, continues with her studies - far too clever and artistic for me to explain … but yesterday I sat in the kitchen with her while she produced an animated invitation for Rosemary’s birthday in September which involved a surfer, surfboard and iron - the latter of which travelled through the air and landed on front of the board. She explained the intricacies of her work - which apparently will end up as 12 individual ‘invites’ - and rather put my lame efforts on this blog to shame. Better still - SHE knew exactly what she was talking about while … most of the time, I didn’t.
It was a lovely evening, spent amongst family and friends, mostly just soaking up the atmosphere and adding an occasional comment. It is so good catching up with the family vibe and enjoying being a part of it … often, I suspect … with a rather dazed expression, whilst trying to keep up.
Wednesday 23rd
My mum worked at the Prudential Insurance company, with a lady called Marjorie Forster. And they both produced daughters in Twickenham Maternity Hospital within a month of each other … almost 80 years ago. Despite the distance, they remained “in touch” and when I first returned to the UK, in 1969, I made contact with the Forsters and became good friends with their “baby girl” - Sally … staying with her, and her husband Ken, for a few months “between flats”.
This time, they came to see ME and we spent a happy morning catching up in Hannah’s front room … eating birthday cake. Sally was in an accident last year, breaking her neck and spending considerable time in hospital after her driver friend’s heart stopped and they went off the road. The friend had a pacemaker fitted that evening and was discharged a couple of days later.
She survived the ordeal and is still her happy self … presently doing Pilates with the same group of friends and working up to returning to the tennis foursome who were all in the car.
But now they are awaiting cancer surgery for Ken, (who without any symptoms, was told by his daughter he should have a check up) … next week.
Not the cheeriest of meetings, but so good to catch up - albeit briefly.
