A wedding, an 80th, a 60th and an honorable mention!

Well, this is the wedding I nearly never made.  I live about 60 miles from Heathrow airport, so in good faith and anticipation I left home 5 hours before my flight was due ... yes 5 hours!  That was to allow 2 hours to get there (no seriously, even at 30 miles an hour ...) and 3 hours to check in.

Of course I travelled via the road from hell, aka M25 - London's orbital ring road - DO NOT USE THIS ROAD ever.  Motorway my arse ... it's a carpark.  On the day in question some fool had decided to trash his car at the M25 junction with Heathrow.  There was a 30+ mile traffic jam ... with 4 hour delays reported.  Arrrrrrgh.  After racing up and down tiny roads, along with every other car who wanted off the road from hell, I arrived at Heathrow with 25 minutes before the flight was due to take off.  The desk was shut, but a hugely kind Malaysian Airline check in girl took one look at my red face and sobs and took my bags ... she got 2 burly security guys to rush me through security and race for the gate .. of course it was the gate 43 - the furthest from the terminal!  I made it but only because of the kindness of the check in staff.

This is my little bride and groom gift ... not quite Karen and Andrew, but much loved all the same, as was the gift of funds from the family that I took out with me.  

The day was gorgeous - the preceding 7 had been torrential rain, so someone somewhere heard a prayer!

And this is the result of much hard work, I was out there to help my sister get married and  to cater!  She's a veggie, so I did the boned and stuffed turkey and, with less than an hour to spare was still de-shelling 2 kg of prawns - I was aromatic!  It was accompanied by all manner of delicious salads and veggie dishes ... as well as intoxicated fruit salad which was happy to the tune of half a bottle of rum - yum!

At the end of the evening, I got rather carried away .. perhaps I should have been carried off!  But I did my "I'm here  to stand beside my sister as she gets married, and represent all her family" speech with enthusiasm, passion (and probably several glasses of  champagne inside me).

After the wedding I took time out to do some traditional Aussie things, we BBQ'd on the pristine and free outdoor barbies; we sailed on Drew's boat; I attempted surfing without too much bodily damage and, of course, the knitting and Ravelry bag came too.

Do you know ... the UK weather just sucks after sub tropical Queensland, although we do have yarn shops to compensate - they seem to be missing over there!

On Wednesday it will be my mother's 80th birthday ... do feel free to shout out "Happy 80th Joan" if you should see her on 6th May.

Another of my sisters (I have so many it is embarrassing and don't blame me it's all my mother's fault) put on a birthday lunch yesterday (Sunday).  Thank you Jacqueline who hosted family and friends to a rather yummy lunch - and this is my mother ... happy and enjoying the company (and possibly a small glass of sweet wine!).

I shall be taking her to lunch on Wednesday, the actual day, and then hosting another get togetheron Saturday for my kids and their families, who couldn't make Sunday.  

Tomorrow, however, I'm cooking lunch (do I ever have a social occasion without food?)(yes, but never without wine!!) for my friend's 60th and I'm expecting that Hilary will get giggly, Treez will be droll and I shall be snapping a photo or two!

Finally an acceptance speech - thank you - to Sheila and to Suse-the-slow for their kind remarks, and to SMP for making me say "holy crap".

oh, and by the way, the project count is now up to 6 on the go (not counting those that have gone into hiding) and I have to finish one for my mother by Wednesday, so why am I still blogging ?????

Love and hugs and sunshine

xxx