The Carnival is over!

It's been a whirlwind month for me with lots of birthday celebrations with family and friends!

Cards kept arriving like this...



Ann made this particular card - its kind of her signature to use a childhood photo in her handmade cards - yes - that little girl is ME! I think you can tell with the eyes. I LOVE it Ann - thank you!



I was wined and dined by our friends Ellen and Tuck...



On Saturday we went to Lincoln and then Grapevine where we met up with other friends Cliff and Janice...





On Sunday, we had a birthday lunch at Ask... I wasn't expecting Laura-Beth, but Steph had arranged it all as (another!) surprise...



More surprise gifts to go with the not so surprise gifts!



When we visit Laura-Beth and Jim in Leicester, we usually pay a visit to Narborough Hall - especially at Christmas because you can buy some lovely and unusual gifts, so I was excited when Laura-Beth passed this bag over to me...



After the meal we spent the afternoon at Brodsworth Hall, there was a vintage car rally event so it was quite busy...





We had a fabulous afternoon - near perfect except that our son was unable to be with us - a day trip from Belfast was asking a bit much I think!



It was like old times, when the children were young, we used to visit this old Hall often, Laura-Beth was very impressionable and had a dream that she was one of the servants here... Steph still teases her to this day about that dream so we all trooped up to the servants' quarters to check out 'her' room...the beds are now obviously mattress-less and that was the joke - as a little girl, Laura-Beth was horrified that the servants had to sleep on a bed with bare springs! (she vehemently tells us that it was not a dream she had, but a nightmare!)



Now my birthday is one of significance as I told you, so you'd think it was me that would be nostalgic, but my girls asked if we could have a 'Saturday tea' like we did when they were children...


We are a family who eats at the dining table, but occasionally, on a Saturday, I used to make a 'high tea' and we would lay it out on the coffee table and we would all sit on the floor around the table and eat while we watched 'The New Adventures of Superman'!! Ahhh the memories.

I was feeling pretty elated by our day with the girls, but we still had Northern Soul event to attend that evening....



...and my friends had yet more surprises in store... Julie, Karen and Jackie had arranged balloons, nibbles and cake as well as flowers and gifts galore!



All this love, generosity and attention has overwhelmed me - I know its been a special birthday - I won't ever be 50 again - but I feel really blessed - there's no other word for it!

I've not shown all the photo's and gifts surrounding this birthday - it would take too long and I don't want to bore you! I'm going to be very busy starting tomorrow (when the boxes arrive) packing for our move in a few weeks, so I will be MIA for a while - I'll still visit other blogs but the only creating I will be doing myself, will be scrapbook pages for my classes.