Birthdays

Oh dear I must be about 3 weeks behind again. The day after my brief illness, I didn't go to church as I feel slightly wobbly, and didn't want a repeat performance of the time when I almost fainted. I pottered around getting lunch ready, and I managed to eat a fairly decent lunch. later that afternoon we went to our Daughter's home, as it was Nathaniel's 4th Birthday, where has the time gone?
The family had been to the transport museum on the Saturday, in Covent garden. the weather hadn't been suitable for the planned zoo trip. Soon Nathaniel was eagerly opening his present from us, which was junior Lego, the knight's castle to be precise. There didn't seem too be much to the castle, but there were lots of other bricks in the box to play with and build things with. Our Daughter had made a rather super rocket cake, and after a lovely tea, we watched as Nat blew out the candles,and sang happy Birthday to him. Lydia has learnt the words, and can be heard at odd times singing it, along with twinkle twinkle and row row row the boat.

We had arranged to visit my sister in Birmingham on the Tuesday, we haven't seen her for a while. we didn't set off as early as I had planned, but we decided to use the M40. It takes a while to get to the M40, but once we were on it we had a fairly good run. We stopped to buy coffee at the services, but didn't hang around. We arrived at around lunch time, but didn't eat straight away, as we were waiting for my nieces to arrive. We were chatting, the girls arrived, sister was making sandwiches, when suddenly husband went very quiet, and disappeared to the bathroom. When he came down, he sat quietly, then said he felt unwell, and hot, and he looked positively grey. He disappeared again, and it soon became apparent that he was quite unwell with some sort of gastroenteritis.
I won't go into detail, but to cut a long story short, he didn't eat any lunch, we left earlier than planned, and I had to drive home. He had been fine in the morning.
He went off upstairs whilst I got a meal for myself. The next morning he was wobbly, but managed toast later. Thankfully we were not childminding that week, our Daughter was taking days off to take the children to a holiday bible club at their church. I did the shopping, and was doing various things to my car, to get it ready to sell. I had been meaning to sell it for over a year, it had done so little mileage in the last year, and it was becoming expensive keeping two cars on the road. The Focus had been costing a fortune in repairs lately. It was before the trip to Brum that we noticed the leak on the power steering had got worse, so on that Thursday morning I took it in to a recommended garage, and had a nice walk back into town. They had to order parts for it, so I didn't take husband to collect it till the Friday. As he drove it home, he realised the air con wasn't working properly.
I managed to fit in a visit to our friend C, in Watford hospital, she had made a remarkable recovery, and was hoping to go home within 2 days.
Sadly my sister was also ill, a couple of days later, then her husband was ill on the Saturday, but hos symptoms were more like mine. Some weird virus I guess, which attacks in different ways.
I had spent time reorganising the guest bedroom, getting the bed made up into a double, and at about 8 pm that  Friday evening our son, his wife baby and dog all arrived. It was going to be Ethan's Birthday on the Tuesday, so we were going to have a tea party for him on the Saturday. I had a made a cake in the rough shape of a number 1. I had found some teddy bear cutters in Dunelm, and unable to mix  a decent brown colour, decorated it with blue teddies. Little did I know that he has a blue teddy.
On the Saturdy morning our Son had this mad idea that we should all go out for lunch, he chose a venue, then went off to buy something.
Eventually we found the venue, Daughter and family arrived,and we all found something we liked on the menu. The lunches were quite substantial, so we decided tea would be quite late. We nipped home, picked up various things, then we all congregated at our Daughter's home, where Ethan was helped to open his presents from the family, a Fisher Price garage from us, and building blocks from Daughter and family.
Quite a while later, Daughter allowed me free range of her kitchen, where I boiled eggs, made up rolls, wraps, etc and put them on plates, there were pringles too,and cherry tomatoes. We had a Birthday tea, and then Ethan, quite bewildered, was presented with his first Birthday cake, complete with candle. He reached out, not to touch the candle but to pat the cake!  Soon it was time for the little ones to be got ready for bed, so we came home, and Ethan had his bedtime routine.We didn't hear him during the night, but I believe he awoke early, then slept, then woke again, this happened a couple of times.

Looking bewildered 

enjoying cake

Lydia and mummy 

The family went off for their morning service, we went to our church. then home to roast pork and all the trimmings, followed by blackberry and apple crumble.  I rarely do puds these days, but it seemed ncie and seasonal.I asked Son if they had prayed for C in the service,and he said, 'Yes, they mentioned she has to have an operation'. I thought that was odd,as she had been looking forward to coming home, but obviously they had decided otherwise.  Then son and Daughter in law took Tom for a walk, and left Ethan with us as he doesn't see enough of us to get used to us. He was fine, playing with the toys I keep for the other 2. Not long after they got back from the walk, they packed up the car, and headed for home. We both fell asleep, tired out after a lovely family weekend.
I'm sorry it's taken me so long to upload this, but I mislaid my camera cable connecter