Yesterday I celebrated my 60th birthday with a glass of Bucks Fizz on waking. The day before I had made cake and biscuits to share with various friends (and managed to get a huge blister from all the creaming of butter and sugar - I do all my prep by hand). There was orange and choc marble cake and ginger cream biscuits. I had a Mothers' Union meeting on Thursday night and took some along. We were making St Brigid Crosses. This was something a couple of us learned to do at another branch event and wanted to pass on to our members. My friend had lost her cross so I was the only one with the complete item! Well, it was the blind leading the blind but what fun we had doing it. We all got there in the end by helping each other out - proper team work. Then it was time for cake and chat (always an essential at our meetings). It was a great night.
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| St Brigid Cross with Prayer links |
So, yesterday after my Bucks Fizz and breakfast I opened my cards and stuck up some banners a friend had given me after her recent 60th party. There was then a delivery of a 60th birthday balloon and a tiny box of chocolates. By the time I got myself together it was time to go out to my sport session. I don't know what came over me but I was in winning mood - you are only 60 once in your life and I was on fire! I threw myself into short tennis in a girls verses boys best of four and we won all four games. The looks from across the net were hilarious. The men wanted a re-match, so we gave them one. We won 3/1. I then switched sports to badminton and played four games and was on the winning side each time. It was all great fun and everyone loved the cakes. They sang happy birthday to me which was lovely. Come next Friday I will probably play like rubbish!
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| Just about awake! |
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| About to go out to play sport |
The afternoon was a relaxing one, a little reading, a snooze, and then in the evening the family (hubby, two sons and I) went to the local Nando's for dinner. I wore my 60 badge!
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| At Nando's |
Today (I still see myself as celebrating, you understand), I went off to an Art and Soul Day at the
London Spirituality Centre. I fancied something creative and crafty. There was only seven of us. We sat in a circle and contemplated what summer meant to us. We listened to poetry, short gospel readings and each picked an image that felt right to us, and wrote down some answers to questions from the leader. Then it was off to make our journals. With three sheets of paper we measured, and folded, and stitched our pages together. There was a table filled with baskets of motifs, pens, rubber stamps, papers, stickers. You name it, it was there. Where to start? It was a bit like the blank page of writing. Getting that first thing stuck to the paper was quite scary.
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| The front of my journal (craft pack above) |
It was so enjoyable. I was completely into it. Crafting takes you out of the usual stuff (well, it does me). I knew I wouldn't get mine finished but I wasn't worried. The lady I was sitting with was panicking that she wouldn't get it done and getting quite stressed about what to put on the pages. I recognised the symptoms - that's usually me, but today I was laid back and enjoying myself. For me it wasn't in the finishing but the doing (very unusual for me!). At the end we came back to the circle and shared our thoughts on what we had done/how it felt and showed our journals. Some people had finished theirs, but not all. I have tons of crafting stuff here and I am inspired now! In fact, I might do this activity with my Mothers' union group in the autumn. We each came home with a small craft pack and an instruction sheet, should we want to make more.
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| Inside pages |
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| A half page fold |
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| Left hand side has a pocket (orange paper) yet to be filled |
So what next? I don't know yet. Back in January I did start a list of things to do this year but I've scraped it. I want to be spontaneous, try new things and do a few silly things, just for the hell of it. Watch this space!
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