Party Planner

My Mum is soon to celebrate her 80th birthday, a birthday that earlier this year she seemed unlikely to make. ……However because she is such a tough cookie, stubborn, independent, hmmm who do I take after? And by the miracle of modern medicine and a little bit of fairy dust thrown in for good measure. We are about to give her a birthday to remember.

I have booked a birthday lunch in a beautiful Georgian Hotel in the town of her birth and childhood, Harpenden. The call has gone out to all the family who have all rallied to the call and are attending the big day. Aunty Joan has ordered the birthday cake, some of us girls have brought new dresses and boys have had to re-arrange work schedules, but we are on course. We have about 20 people attending, Mum exclaimed that she did not know that many people, but once I pointed out she had three children and eight Grandchildren just for starters not to mention partners, husbands, bothers etc.

I decided it would be a good idea to do a power point presentation of her life so show on the day. This is a bigger undertaking than I realised. I have employed Simon’s incredible talents and we had our first production meeting today. Mind you in the past weeks, attics have been raided, cupboards searched, relatives hounded and downright deceit employed in order to obtain relevant photos. The finished item is going to be fabulous. The next problem was what music to use on the production, some one suggested ‘little ‘ol wine drinker me’ by Dean Martin. I decided that was a no no, of course! I have gone for ‘You Make Me Feel So Young’ for the first part ‘Little Things’ for when the Grandchildren appear and ‘Do you Wanna dance’ for pictures of various wild family gatherings.

It has been an emotional roller coaster for me cataloguing in order, the memories of her life. She was such a pretty young woman, it is so easy to forget that the elderly lady who now needs lots of help to get safely through her day now was once a vibrant beautiful young woman who lived and loved life to the full. …And boy what a lot of fun and laughter we all had. I am choked to near tears every time I work on it as I see my beautiful late Dad, my pretty Mum proudly showing off babies, my gentle grand father and sweet grandma, not to mention all the children of myself and my sisters. I will have to have a box of tissues at the ready on the day, as I am sure I will not be the only one!