Fifty years young

Unbelievably, the sun was shining and the sky was blue; one day amidst the rain and mud soaked misery that had characterised the past few weeks.  I headed out with the dog on my favourite walk across Lea Green and into Grass Wood.

Landing back at the house, one of my dearest friends arrived in time for coffee, armed with a selection of truly meaningful presents, including an original copy of Riding magazine from February 1964, and in a really touching gesture of self-sacrifice, her own vintage picnic set ‘Miss Awbrey’ (so named from the original owner’s label inside) which I had coveted for many years. It made me cry, of course, but in a nice way. 

This may seem bizarre, but we then headed out to trawl around a graveyard.  Having had my family tree done by a client http://www.discoveryourroots.co.uk/ , I was keen to find my local ancestors down the road in Marton churchyard. I grew up 200 miles away from here, with no living relatives who had any idea we had once come from this area, so finding that I had three or four generations of direct line ancestors was a massive surprise for me when Alvin traced them.  It felt fitting to celebrate my half century by trying to connect with the church where they had been christened and married, and were doubtless buried.

After scrabbling about scraping moss off several gravestones and with some help from a friendly dog walker and the vicar, our efforts were rewarded when we duly found Moses Geldard. Another happy weep.

We celebrated the find with a pub lunch at The Cross Keys and I imagined Moses and those other ancestors enjoying their family celebrations there centuries ago.

And still the sun shone, so I couldn’t resist a trip to see my lovely pony in Appletreewick next.

Where else could I possibly choose to spend my birthday evening but at http://grassingtonhousehotel.co.uk/ with my parents, Mark and ‘the outlaws’ for an outstanding dinner. A truly perfect evening to round off a wonderful birthday.

But the celebrations didn’t end there.  The following Saturday we held an open house party on the theme of childhood, ‘Twister & Twiglets’, with 83 friends and relatives coming and going between 2pm and midnight.

Everyone was asked to bring, instead of presents, an item of memorabilia from their own childhood. From American high school yearbooks to Robinsons Gollywogs, the memories duly arrived and were shared with excitement all round.

With the help of some star friends and relatives, to eat there were (among other childhood delights), jam sandwiches, marmite sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches, iced gems, party rings, jelly and blancmange, not to mention a fabulous surprise cake by http://www.fanticy.co.uk/ which was an outstanding depiction of my beloved little car, Suzanna.

Of course there were balloons. We set up an old video and played The Jungle Book, Clangers, Camberwick Green, Magic Roundabout, Trumpton and The Herbs in the front room, while a tablet was set up on youtube in the kitchen so people could find their own favourites from Zorro to Casey Jones, Banana Splits to Crackerjack, and, of course, White Horses (another weep).

Winners of Pass the Parcel (with forfeits), Twister, Kim’s Game (the memory game with 12 items on a tray), and Pin the Tail on the donkey were rewarded with Bubbles, Snap and (immensely popular) Clackers.  So many people declared they had been really good at Clackers and then went on to prove that their technique had clearly fallen by the wayside.  We still have the bruises…

We stuck a long length of lining paper up in the dining room and provided wax crayons for a colouring wall, so that people could leave their pictures and messages for me to keep as a reminder of a wonderful evening with lots of lovely people.  

If this is what being fifty is going to be like, it’s going to be a great decade!