stuff

The last couple of days are a bit of a blur but I'll do my best to catch you up.
Okay, backing up, when I left you on Wednesday, I was awaiting the arrival of Nadie, The Boy and the Boy's-parents-from-Townsville and his sister jenny.
It was a beautiful bright sunny day without being a scorcher, and Nadie, The Boy and the cats arrived around noon. Sophie reacted with her usual grace and aplomb and bolted straight under my bed after hissing and growling at everyone in sight. Oakley just gave his usual resigned shrug and went off to the relative safety of his basket.
Given Chris's mum's cat allergy, we all met in town for a relaxed lunch at Saff's followed by some retail therapy and then I left to pick up Dave while Nadie and Chris took Sheila and co to view the facade of the old Imperial Hotel where the external shots for one of her favourite shows "Blue Heelers" was shot until last year. Once her pilgrimage was complete, they came back to view the decorations etc. I think she also went to see where 'Neighbours ' externals are shot whilr they were in Melbourne during the week. The lady obviously likes her aussie "drama"
We had to limit Sheila's cat exposure and even though I'd vacuumed, there was no way in hell I'd managed to defluff the whole house so we all ended up having afternoon tea on the verandah. Chris is slightly miffed because Nadie and I both contend that he's got his father's sense of humour. We see this as a compliment of sorts. He does not.
After they left, there was a brief period of regrouping and then the tribe from David's social group arrived for the BBQ breakup party.
Frantic is not quite the word but it'll do until I think of another one. Instead of sitting outside, they all trouped into my kitchen and rumpus room and pretty much all of them stayed there.
This is not a small house. I have a reasonable sized kitchen ... BUT... any kitchen will look crowded with about 20 people in it... 2o people high on Christmas cheer who are making a hell of a lot of noise...
Still once things calmed down a wee bit, it was a hectic but fun evening.
The boys were put in charge of the BBQ and evidence suggests that everything was cooked on high. Did I say cooked? Cremated is more like it! Still the burnt offerings appeared to be enjoyed by all and the gelati went down a treat.
At about 9pm they all hopped back in the buses, sang me a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday to You and drove off into the gathering darkness to view the christmas lights.
A moderate amount of cleaning up later saw me collapsed in front of the teev with a cuppa and yet another crochet facecloth.
Okay, Friday :
well, I didn't expect Chris and Nadie to surface until late morning so after I dropped D in town I went Line Dancing until noon. [ from Nadie: Hey we actually made it up and were out the front eating brekkie in the sun at 10.30 without setting the alarm, which given that I'm no morning person and Chris doesn't know what a morning is, is no small effort. ]
Later Chris and Nadie went out for lunch and to see the new James Bond movie and I pottered around.
Later still, we all went to the pub for dinner and Open Mike Night. Some of David's friends from the night before were there having yet another breakup party and my bellydance teacher was also there with rellies down from the Northern Territory so it felt like we knew a lot of people. Not that David exactly socialises, but people were speaking to HIM.
Even later, Susan and I did a couple of dances to thunderous applause [ having come armed with the appropriate music and jingly janglies just in case :] and I didn't really notice if the barflys from the front bar pried themselves away from the pooltable but Nadie says the audience numbers increased while we were on, with people drifting in from outside. I'll take her word for it cos I couldn't really see much.

I also did a solo dance for the first time and managed not to stuff up which is always good!

which brings us to today which is my birthday

and I have to explain something to you.

Seven years ago today, Marc, my husband of 25 years died after a one year battle with cancer.
My birthday is probably always going to be a bit of an emotional rollercoaster so I'm not going to write about it just now. Maybe tomorrow.

I've had some lovely birthday wishes, been spoiled with presents, most of my family is here, we are having a nice day ... BUT ...

and maybe now you will understand one of the reasons why I go nuts with the seasonal stuff. I always DID to a certain extent, but after Marc passed away it became one of my coping mechanisms.