50, not out!

At the beginning of February I turned 50 and so now I have extreme old age to blame for the truly sporadic nature of my blogging ;-)

In a feeble attempt to deny this aging, I had a party which was set in the 1970s and talked various of my best friends into dressing up in silly clothes. Manda and Colin, usually seen in this blog digging at the plot are here transformed into Agnetha and some other bloke, from Abba. I decided to dress up as a punk rocker and my beloved hairdresser, Karen, fixed me up with the best hairdo of my life to date. Some well placed tippex and a few chains and badges later and - voila! So odd-looking that some of my friends drove past me entirely unaware, when I was heading down the road to the party. Never having looked anything other than truly unremarkable (fat and forgettable) I found the whole process of dressing up like this really interesting. Who knows what will be next?
Annie, meanwhile, was stuck with a suit I bought on Ebay and which turned out to be for a slimmer 70s chick than yours truly. A. reckoned it was something her Mom would have worn, back in the day. However, with the additions of the T. Rex t-shirt and blue shades, I can't see that myself.

The band played (they're so kind!) and Andy did look lovely as a Village Person. Phil says he was dressed as himself, back in the 70s, but none of us knew him then to tell you whether he's the same shape! The pretty lady brave enough to stand next to Phil is his lovely wife Chris, who also found a very cool costume for the 70s, as you can see. You might notice that Annie the suit is now playing drums, what a musician that girl is! We lost our last drummer and Annie seems to have tired of the endless struggle to find a replacement. I think she is developing a new sympathy for drummers though, now she's trying that out herself. The handsome young chap on the left here is Alex, Andy's son. Alex provided a really great addition to the sound and was very patient, humouring the old folks!

Loads of truly wonderful friends came along, lovely Sal looking very fetching in a maxi-dress of the era. I really wanted to get Annie to wear a dress like this and a long wig, then we could claim she was Karen Carpenter. Somehow though, I lost out that suggestion ...

Paul looks kinda nervous there, or maybe he's just working out his next dance routine? We had a number of prizes for dancing, during the party, and the competition to do a Swayze lift got quite serious, towards the end of the day. The food turned out pretty well and this amazing cake was the star of the show.

Here's Eddie, cake-mistress extrordinaire, seemingly terribly pleased with a 70s lollipop. I should have pics of the inside of the cake too, then you'd truly be bowled over, but you know how it is with cake ...

On one song the band were kind enough to let the aging punk play her new paino too. So here's a lass concentrating REALLY hard.

A number of people were very kind in helping to set up and tear down the event, including my goregous cousin Janice and her handsome squire, Martyn. M has just taken up bass guitar, so hopefully next gig ...

Lots of friends clubbed together to help Annie organise that piano for me, as my dream gift. Others like Dave, Damian ...

Laura, Cath, Mark and Fi (Paul, John, Eddie, Sallie, Jane, Chris and Nick) organised beautiful flowers, booze and a donation to my new pet charity, Trafford Rape Crisis.

All in all, I am ridiculously lucky. And that's not even counting anywhere near all of my lucky stars.

Allotment update: The boys have been digging and we've spuds chitting again, veg lovers, so there may well be news from the plot, in the next couple of weeks!

K xxx.