Family Affairs and other matters

Sorry about the radio silence. I have been ridiculously busy. Without really thinking about the logistics of being away for 5 weeks and of subsequently having a huge amount both to do and sort out, we gave a surprise party for my parents 45th wedding anniversary last night at my house. My two brothers and I have been planning it for months. Invitations to old friends from their Hong Kong days went out months ago. I couldn’t write about how busy we all were in case my parents read it (although not much chance of that given that my father thinks my blog is a pile of old shite and my mother doesn’t know what a computer is).

It was a complete triumph. I think they loved it. My brother cooked a fantastic curry for 30, my sister-in-law cleaned my house from top to bottom (she got the worst job – it was not an easy task), my other brother spent 4 hours in Ikea and had to lie to my parents for 24 hour, his fiance arrived and made fabulous canapes, my daughter made pavlova’s and brownies all day, friends arrived with chairs and bowls and plates and gazebo’s and champagne and reassurances and I simply swanned around stage managing the whole event and glowing with admiration for a fabulous team effort. It was lovely to see everyone together again after all those years – old friends and family together – it doesn’t get much better than that. If my children organise something like that for me one day (although it’s not looking very likely that I’m going to reach a 45 year anniversary mark at this point in time) I will be very happy.

To be honest, it was more of a “celebration of life” party for them. I am full of admiration that they have managed a successful marriage (so far). It is not an easy thing to do. All their old friends seem to have done the same and are all still together (is it just a generation thing?). My father has recently finished his chemotherapy for bowel cancer and seems to be well, my mother, whilst struggling and in pain with a debilitating back problem is also on pretty good form and we all thought it seemed like a good idea. They have been through a lot recently and have faced each problem both with immense humour and incredible bravery. It was our salute to them.

This morning I didn’t feel quite so generous about the whole thing. I was up far too early to clean up a huge amount of mess, as was my wonderful sister-in-law who I couldn’t have done it without. At 11am everybody else turned up for a de-brief and brought breakfast. I was hoping they’d bring Cheerios and croissants but no, they brought sausages, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, eggs and I had to do a bloody fry-up for 9. Slight sense of humour failure at that point I have to say.

Anyway, a huge thank you goes out to all my lovely family and friends who helped put the whole thing together. I think we should think about setting up a party planning company.