For the party I had a gazebo in the garden in which I had display boards showing some photos of how the building had looked when I acquired it in 2012, the work in transforming it (much of it by myself) from what was partly a barn into my present home and the work on the garden. Most of the work on the garden had been done in the last 12 months, including decking, a paved area and a pond with an ornate bridge. Everyone seemed to be most impressed by the garage mural which I had only finished painting a few weeks previously. Not bad considering I had not done any art painting before.

I was very pleased by the number of my friends who responded to my invitation to come to my party (some of them from quite significant distances). I actually had 31 on my guest list so I was praying for a fine day as it would have been very crowded if we all had to remain indoors. But I needn’t have worried as the day was fine, a few guests did not make it and some of the guests did not turn up until later after some of the early arrivals had already left. So we had a good manageable number throughout the party time. A few even arrived before the scheduled start of 3pm and stayed until we wound up late that evening.

I was very touched by all the well wishes, birthday cards, flowers, presents, and bottles of booze that were given to me. A lot was drunk at the party and I still have quite a few bottles of bubbly over to enjoy later. The buffet which included hot pizza went down well, so much so that I wonder if there had been enough. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves mostly in the garden until quite late when those that remained came inside, chatting in the kitchen and watching the music videos in the lounge.

Quite a few said they are looking forward to my 81^st so it looks like there could be a demand for this to become an annual thing. Well, if that is what a good number of you want, so be it! I certainly enjoyed it.

Many thanks to David Edwards who took many of the photos at the Party

Click on an image below to see a slideshow of pics taken at the party