Half century celebrations #3

With uncanny serendipity, the day after my birthday was the start of a girls' weekend (you might even think we planned it that way ;o)) so the celebrations continued for another two days.

On arrival at the house, my beautiful daughters presented me with the most original, thoughtful and touching birthday present ever! "We knew we had to get you something," they said, "but we didn't know what...so we came up with this," and they handed me a heavy, suede-bound notebook upon which they had mounted the title "Book of Memories." Inside, on the first couple of dozen pages, they had glued a selection of photos, programs, tickets and drawings of many of the times we'd shared together. Holidays, baby photos, school drawings, programs from Christmas concerts, all with added messages of fun and love.

I flicked through the book with a huge smile on my face and a burgeoning tear in my eye - what a great idea! Thanks girls, that is the most special present and I will keep it and add to it with our new memories always.

This was also, coincidentally, the weekend we met Natalie's boyfriend for the first time. OK, can I say that having written that sentence I've now been sitting here for ten minutes trying to decide what else to write. It's not that I feel I have to say nice things (cos who knows who will be reading this, right?), because to do that would not be hard. It wouldn't be "an effort" to find something nice to say. It's more that...I guess some Dads would build it up to be a big deal meeting a daughter's first serious b/f for the first time, but it never really felt like that. He's a nice lad, very polite, has a good sense of humour (and I don't just mean he laughed at my jokes, before you start - he gave as good as he got) but really none of that is important to me. The main thing - the only important thing - is that he makes Natalie happy, and as long as he continues to do that he's alright with me.

So the celebrations continued with an evening visit to the Nawaab - our local and much-loved curry buffet restaurant - which never fails to impress - followed by a group watching of Galaxy Quest (a family favourite). It doesn't get much better than this! I never knew being 50 would be so much fun!