A lockdown birthday and time to look back

I’m currently sat in the back garden, typing away on a lovely warm, sunny day. It was my birthday on 26th May (which you may’ve already seen in my very first blog post) and the weather continues to impress! I can even hear an ice cream van in the distance, which reminds me of when I was about 7/8 years old, searching for enough coins to run out and buy an ice cream before it drove off. Make mine either a ‘Funny Feet’ (with a joke on the wooden lolly stick!), a multi-layered ‘Fab’, or a more sophisticated ‘Cornetto’ (chocolate hazelnut please!), with maybe a ‘Feast’ as a last resort!

Living in London we often see quite a bit of rain and weather is nearly always mentioned in conversation, “You’ll need a brolly” to “Isn’t it lovely?”. So when that shy sunshine comes out of the clouds and the temperature goes up, then we are out there making the most of it like we’re on the Costa del Sol!

Currently we are all still in Coronavirus / Covid-19 lockdown over here, so it was the first birthday where I couldn’t go out anywhere to celebrate. A visit to the local garden centre, although lovely, wasn’t the birthday venue I was thinking of – although their cafe and restaurant (when open) is lovely and well worth a visit just for lunch! So I chose to have a relaxing day at home.

I received some lovely birthday messages via phone, text message, Whatsapp, e-mail, Facebook and Twitter. I’m so glad we now have these options of communication in or out of lockdown. It brings those that are miles away that much closer.

Looking back to high school days and social media, even mobile phones, weren’t a thing in the 90’s. When it came to calling friends, we always had to use the landline when we got home, and then only for about 30 minutes! I remember Dad saying something along the lines of “What have you got to talk about? You’ve seen them today and you’re going to see them again tomorrow!”

He said it with a smile of course, but back then it was so important to catch up on the school day and what had happened on the bus home (for those who don’t know, we had to walk or get those red London buses home, no school bus for us here!). We’d even call each other to discuss the TV programmes we’d just watched, mainly soap operas or the latest episode of the newly imported ‘Friends’. Rachel and Joey were my favourites – couldn’t believe it when they got together, even if it was for what felt like five minutes!

I received some lovely birthday presents this year, which included a beautiful Fox & Ivy Topaz & Amber scented candle with a nice ‘S’ initial, a set of four lovely summery body mists from Next (I’m wearing the Coral Blush one right now and I feel like I need a Strawberry Daiquiri! Haha any excuse!!) and a beautiful hummingbird duvet set. Some more cards arrived today due to Bank Holiday Monday and changes in collection times. Nice to continue the birthday love!

Regarding birthday food and drink, two firsts for me this year:

For the cocktails, due to lockdown and lots of fellow Brits enjoying the booze, ahem, sun(!), I only got to try the Pimm’s and later on a spiced rum and cola. Both were lovely and the Pimm’s went very well with an M&S Yumnut (as did a nice cuppa tea! Of course!!).

My evening meal was a takeaway from my favourite local Chinese restaurant. Vegetable spring rolls, vegetable chow mein (with a side of Satay sauce), and aubergine in spicy garlic sauce. That was more than enough for me but I still had room for a bit of chocolate birthday cake later on!

One good thing about a lockdown birthday is that there is a bit more cake and a couple of Yumnuts left over to enjoy with your tea throughout the week and I’m more than happy to continue the celebrations in to June! 🙂

There have been two moments before and after my birthday that I’d like to reflect on. Today would’ve been my grandad Jan’s birthday. I have wonderful memories of him and wish I could’ve spent more time with him but his character lives on in me and mum and I smile whenever I think of him. I’m planning to write a blog post about him. He was in the Polish Army during World War II and stationed over here in the north west of England, where he met my Nan in the Blackpool Tower ballroom.

Finally, this post is dedicated to Victoria Tremlett (aka Tor), who very sadly left us on 24th May. Tor had her own blog and was such a friendly, caring soul. After meeting her at another friend’s birthday party, we kept in touch, sharing a mutual love of musical theatre. I also designed the business card for her creative cake company. Tor was such a talent and will be greatly missed xx