birthday blog

Hello lovelies,

Happy Friday! How's your week been? How's your weekend looking?

Thank you so much for your care for the girl in the forest post. As the days have gone by her place in our story and in our lives has settled somewhat. The other day though out of nowhere I grew desperate for some details and quizzed Bren about what shoes she was wearing - lace up black boots, what colour and how long her hair was - black long bob, and what she had screamed for the most - her boyfriend. 

It's strange to be so connected to someone else in their time of complete distress, for such a short but intense time, and then to have nothing to do with them ever again. But I guess her story is now part of our story and we'll think of her at different times and hope for the best for her. I daresay we'll look at the forest a bit differently now when we drive through it. We'll probably look for lost girls and imagine how it would feel to be out there lost and alone.

What I really want to talk about today is farmer Bren's birthday last Saturday.

When I first started blogging, birthdays were blog gold. There was the planning stage, the invitations, the food, the presents and the party. So many creative opportunities. So much to photograph and say. So much fun! My girls love looking back at those posts and remembering their childhood celebrations. 

My farmer boy was born at the start of January which is right in the middle of the summer school holidays. Growing up he never had birthday parties because all his friends would be away. Since I've known him every year I've come up with a long list of fancy ways we could celebrate him but every year he chooses the simple. And every year we all agree that his way of celebrating is the best.

We started the day off with a huge stack of crepes, and plates full of all the summer fruit, and cups of strong coffee.

We sang, he read out his cards, he opened his presents and we all made a big fuss over him.

Then we went outside and sang for him while he played To Her Door over and over and over until he nailed it. 

Then he carved a birthday spoon out of apple wood. 

What fun to spend an entire day doing the things that make you happy.

While he was axing and carving and cutting, I wound the yarn for his birthday socks and knitted the toes.

After a little lunch, we wandered down to the windmill dam for a swim.

During the week while we had watched the weather forecast for his birthday get hotter and hotter it had occurred to our boy that he'd love to spend the day at the beach. When that wasn't going to work out he decided to bring the beach to him.

The day before his birthday he mowed and cleared a section of bank of the dam. He put some old tarps down and lay some fine gravel over the top. Very early on the morning of his birthday he had a truck of sand delivered. He smoothed it out and voila! Bren's birthday beach!

We found some old air mattresses and a yabby net in the caravan and in between swims and floats, the girls used a bit of sausage to catch the nippy critters.

They discussed the anatomy of each one, they gave them names and then they raced them.

The highlight of the afternoon was when Bob junior beat Bob senior in the grand final race. The worst part was watching in horror as Sheila ate Pepper's prize frog!

All the yabbies were let go at the end of the races and no animals were hurt at all apart from that poor little frog.

As evening fell we came back inside and watched Pete's Dragon together. We ate pasta with pesto, ice cream cake and toasted our boy with mugs full of ginger beer.

He's pretty awesome our boy and it's such a treat to celebrate him.

Happy birthday Farmer Bren!

We love you to bits.

x

So I was just wondering, if you could spend a whole day doing the things that bring you the most joy, what would they be?

I think mine would involve coffee and a few chapters of a good book in bed, lots of knitting, time together in the garden, a family movie that would make me cry, a salad with crunchy noodles, fruit salad and yogurt and a fancy cocktail or two.


Hope your weekend is ace!

Love! Love!