Happy Oestara! Happy Birthday!

Snow covered bluebells in the back garden this morning

So it’s Easter Sunday and the third day of my birthday weekend and it’s snowing!!! What a dramatic touch to a busy birthday time.

I kicked this week’s celebrations off on Wednesday when Naomi and I went to Portobello Road to see Dean Atta, our writer and performer friend. Dean is multi-talented and a gorgeous young man too so we’d been looking forward to it all day. The email told us it was from 7-11pm so following these instructions, and knowing how packed these free events can become, we arrived at 7:30 or so at an empty bar with nothing going on, only to be told by the barman that the sound engineer didn’t usually arrive until about 8 and no performance would begin until at least 9pm. Too bored and tired to wait, we had a quick chat with lovely Dean before making our apologies and heading home.

Thursday was my second social whirl washout. Naomi had programmed an event at Whitechapel gallery, Sound Blast, featuring several poets and performers, about which she was most pleased and excited, and I of course wanted to support her.
But it was not to be for me. I went to the allotment earlier that afternoon to plant and move the fruit bushes and raspberry canes, it being a ‘fruit’ day in the biodynamic calendar. As I started working it began to rain, which quickly increased to a steady downpour. Knowing that there isn’t another ‘fruit’ day until mid-April, I toiled on and got absolutely soaked. The wind was tearing and the rain endless. By the time I got home I felt like I’d done a few rounds in the boxing ring. After a long, hot soak in the tub I knew I was going nowhere that evening.

But Friday March 21 brought rejuvenation and rebirth. My birthday, Oestara, Spring Equinox, and with it plenty of morning sunshine, low and golden and filling my room with light. Throughout the day friends came, food got cooked and eaten, good times were had all round.

Eliseo made me this luscious chocolate birthday cake, soft and yummy in the middle and, rather glamorously inscribed in Italian. I remain impressed - this man can cook.



My niece Hannah came and took plenty of snaps, but sadly none of the two of us!
In my lovely kitchen with my lovely cake


Among my birthday gifts were flowers – 5 of these beautiful roses

and these gorgeous tulips

Last night I went to the fair at Hampstead Heath for more birthday shenanigans. The weather was vile – freezing cold and apt to pour with even more freezing rain at any given second. As a result the turnout was poor, but Jen and Judith showed up for the social whirl of it all, and me and fellow hardcore funfair-rider Andy had an absolute scream – literally!

Andy and I are somewhere in this frenzy of light - what a mad ride!

Haha! I love my birthday. I’m not one of these people who freaks out at getting older. Instead I embrace the celebration, knowing that every year I gain is another year that I’ve been lucky enough to have lived to enjoy. It still astounds me.

I just had a call from Eli who is keen as mustard, despite the snow, to get on with the gardening. More digging today, and potato planting tomorrow.

And then some more birthday whirling throughout the coming week……

Love Birthdays
Love Life
XXX