A Simple Celebration

I haven’t blogged for a while. In the last few weeks we’ve had 5.30am starts, holiday sleep-ins and now we’re looking at a possible 3.30am start each day if all goes well on the job front this week for Mr S.

My duties at school have changed again and I find myself working with a different group of young people. This also means a new timetable. Last term my schedule was “light” on Thursday mornings so I treated myself to a chai latte before work each week. At the moment I’m still trying to see where I can squeeze it into my timetable.

On top of all that I was busy preparing for a milestone birthday.  

Originally I had really wanted to mark the occasion by going away for the weekend. Parties are not my thing so I didn’t see why that would change now. But then a friend commented that parties can provide what are often rare opportunities for people to come together. I thought about this and decided that it would be lovely to have friends and family gathering together here in our home.

I wanted to keep things fairly simple. If you read about the invitations you’ll know that I was also looking forward to the chance to get creative. I had a loose theme of tea party vintage and hoped to bring about a warm, cosy atmosphere.

My list of guests was around 50 and my SA mind imagined unrealistically how grand it all might be – even though I wanted it all to be simple!  As the day grew closer, the guestlist dwindled to 30ish. For a brief moment I was disappointed and I found I had to remind myself why I was doing the party and what I hoped to achieve.

How I kept it simple:

·        I invited my nieces over for lunch and then we set about making some bunting. I had envisaged nicely sewn triangular bunting but then I returned to reality. It was not easy to hang our paper hearts but keeping calm meant I still worked out a way to display it.

·        We made most of the food. We made finger-sized foods such as sandwiches, sausage rolls, scones and pizza slices. We had peanut butter balls and Mum made a sponge cake for the birthday cake.

·        We had material napkins. I used what I already had and borrowed the rest from Mum.

·        The “fancy” tablecloths were from Mum. The cloth on the main table was the one my mum got from her own mum for her engagement. It was really lovely to be able to put out family heirloom pieces.

·        I was so fortunate to have daphne and camellias in bloom. A friend cut the flowers and decorated the rooms. The rooms tend to be dull brown but the pop of colour from the flowers transformed the feel of the whole area.

·        Mr S knew I liked flowers. In the morning when I got up there was a lovely arrangement in the teapot made up of flowers from our garden.

·        Even though it was a tea party I had on offer coffee and hot chocolate as well as soft drinks.

·        I did spend a little extra on paper plates that were made from recycled pulp (?). I had the wonderful idea of keeping the plates and using them in the garden to block out weeds or as compost. In any case, I was preoccupied that evening and all plates ended up in the bin.

I had fun preparing the party. The best part was the buzz throughout the night. Our life here is sweet but very quiet. Mr S said he couldn’t believe that our home could be like that. I must say my mind was going in a hundred directions as everyone arrived and I realised that I hadn’t whipped the cream and the sausage rolls were not ready. I also had my mind on a few people who didn’t know anyone and were a bit shy. Some good friends kept reminding me that it was OK and I didn’t have to worry about them…. And gradually I accepted this. It truly was a lovely evening and it delighted my heart to see our home filled with laughter and chatter.