Birthday ends

[ailbhe]

A little at a time, a little at a time...

Dinner was soup from the Posh Instafood section at Sainsburys - the kind in a carton in a chill cabinet, rather than the kind in a tin. Then there was the Traditional Ailbhe Roast Dinner - roast chicken, mashed and roast potatoes, mashed carrots and parsnips, peas, stuffing, breadsauce, gravy. I think that was it. We drank mainly Summer Fruits squash, but there was also a bottle of wine. Dessert was one traditional Swedish birthday cake, and one Ailbhe-style victoria sponge (heavy, but other people liked it. I think I just prefer a fatless sponge, full stop). With that, we had tea and coffee and champagne.

I drank a glass of white wine with my main course, and almost a glass and a half of champagne later, over the course of about three hours.

I can't remember what people talked about. I do know that everyone sang Happy Birthday, and then Inger sang the Swedish version, and Janice sang the Quebec version. Sadly, there is no Irish version that I know of - only Happy Birthday itself with translated words.

Alan and Inger and Ellie and Andy all went home, and Jen and Gideon and Janice stayed a bit later; we sat around in the library talking about whatever came to mind (including What Will Happen To The Baby If Rob And I Die, which was oddly not depressing at all but quite reassuring) and eventually Gideon more or less fell asleep and he and Jen went home too. So then Janice helped us to stack the dirty plates neatly and she went home. And then Rob and I went to sleep, leaving a huge amount of washing up.

Sunday... I had a distressing dream, and we woke too early as a result. Rob made tea, and then while he ate breakfast I started on the washing up. Then I dried while he washed. Eventually we did the silverware and the crystal, and put things away, and by 3-ish it was all over except the pots and pans. So we dismembered the chicken carcass and put some meat in a chicken shepherd's pie thing and stuck everything else in a pot for stock, and set it to boil. Then we started on the pots and pans.

I was periodically weepy because of my dream, but I felt well enough to ask if Janice wanted to come over to watch a film - she was busy. In the end, I think we read books and went to sleep. The chicken pie was very bland.

It was odd - I was mostly really, really happy, because the birthday party was better than I could have hoped for (subdued, but delightful), and intermittently I felt wretched because of the dream.