My grandma's party was an afternoon tea affair in their local church hall. We arrived early to set up - my Aunty Liz had done the catering and J and I were in charge of decorations. We blew up balloons, hung streamers, and set up tables with the help of my four cousins who live in Radelaide. The guests rocked in (lots early, which shows just how genetic my chronic early-bird-ness must be!) and the party started - and it was just lovely. Cousins, aunts and uncles, great aunts and uncles, friends of great...well you know how these things are!
My highlight was when one of mum's cousins said to me 'You must be in your 20s by now'...YES! 20s! That rocks!
The food Aunty Liz did was wonderful - there were hot plates as well but I am afraid to say I was too interested in eating them by the time they came out!
J had the fabulous idea of name-tagging everyone with their name, and their connection to Grandma on them (Grandma's was adorable - it said 'Elinor, Party Girl'). It was a fun game and a nice way to meet all the other party people (although several did doctor their tags to up their status a wee bit - like 'Andrew, most handsome son in law'. Nice).
I confess I had something in my eye during my grandfather's speech. He talked about how he met my grandma - an abridged version, as he abruptly finished it with 'and then we moved to Nuri and lived there ever since'! We heard the rest of the speech that night around their kitchen table - my grandmother seemed very uncomfortable with the telling but was the first to interject to clarify matters! It was just lovely and I feel so lucky to have been able to be there and share it.
J and I convinced three of our cousins to sneak away for a cheeky butcher and we subsequently avoided party clean up, and got to spend some time with Jonno, The Bias and Jemima who we'd not really seen much at all as adults. By which I mean, over a beer! It's totally cheesy, but it was just a lovely family day!
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