It's been another busy few days. On Saturday we headed to Kent where, in the shadow of Rochester castle, Paul and family were busy setting up a Mad Hatter's Tea Party in celebration of our granddaughter's third birthday. She won't be three for a couple of weeks but it's not going to be possible to hold a birthday party then so it was brought forward.
It was the perfect location for the tea party and we were blessed with ideal conditions - no rain and the shade of the huge old beech tree took the edge off the heat of the day so the children could play without any risk of sunstroke.
Here's the fabulous Alice In Wonderland cake baked by our talented daughter-in-law.
As soon as the party was over and tidied up it was time for us to drive up the motorway towards Wales. We were visiting old friends David and Janet Wareing in Llangollen where they were holding an afternoon lunch party before the finale of the Eisteddfod- a gig by UB40. We drove half way and stayed at a Premier Inn en route.
It was (for us) a short drive of only a few hours in the morning to Llangollen. Again the weather was kind and the family was able to enjoy an informal game of cricket on the lawn overlooking the town. We've been to many of these Eisteddfod events organised by David and Janet over the years and can remember when many of these cricketers were toddlers.
Good friend and Martin Scorcese lookalike Mark Jones from Ribchester joined us in the festivities.
As did his wife Nita and some of Janet's ex work colleagues and family.
Marion was delighted when Janet gave her the gift of a magnificent book of the Alexander McQueen exhibition that we went to at the V & A a few weeks ago.
The party over we all went down the hill to the show ground and the UB40 concert.
We've been big fans of UB40 for years and seen them three times before last night. The last time we saw them Ali Campbell was not in the line up. Now Ali, along with Astro and Mickey Virtue have set up their own band called "UB40 Featuring Ali, Astro And Mickey" which is a bit of a mouthful due, I assume, to contractual obligations and to avoid being confused with the original UB40 who still tour without them. As Ali's fantastic voice and Astro's brilliant rapping have always been the most distinguishing things about the band, this new line up is as close to the original sound as possible and we were back to the glory days as they brought the entire audience to their feet with a set that included new material and, of course most of the favourites, including a final encore of Red Red Wine that bought the house down.
It was a fantastic climax to a wonderful weekend. Now we're back in Framlingham. We've got a trip to the cinema in Ipswich tomorrow for Les Combattants at Ipswich Film Theatre and a Neil Diamond concert at the O2 on Thursday to look forward to before our 39th wedding anniversary at the weekend and, hopefully, another major event to report next week.
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