Week-long Birthday

We’ve been busy celebrating Mum’s second lockdown birthday?

We began the day before when our friends gathered at Hampton Court for a boat ride along the River Thames.

This was the first time that all six of us have gathered together since the second lockdown began in December.

Our hoomans had hired a boat with a skipper to take us on a ride along the Thames River.

We had Andrew from @RavenImagery on board to take some photos

There’s us …

We went up and down the River Thames

And of course there were cupcakes.

Ahhhh, this was seeing London in a different way.

In the hands of our very relaxed Skipper!

George was intensely interested in what was going on in the waters as we held onto him for dear life. He has a history of leaping into the waters without knowing it is water.

Safely back ashore, the celebrations for the real day began early next morning. I’ll let Mum tell you all about that.

And here we are a week later, and that explains why we haven’t been able to blog. And guess what? I think we are going away after all … watch this space as Mum and pooches escape before the week-long celebrations are over!

May’s comment: I remember last year’s Lockdown birthday so clearly – the day was spent on phone calls with friends from afar as the world had begun a lockdown. It remains clearly in my mind. And this year we had a bit more freedom … being able to eat outside. With that I took advantage of it.

It began with hot cakes for breakfast at Granger’s on Pavilion Road with Belinda and Freddie.

A bit of shopping before dim sum lunch with Ruby and Bella at Yauatcha.

And finally dinner drinks at Bluebird with my next door neighbour, Gina and her labradoodle, Charlie.

All outdoor seating! Normally we wouldn’t have been able to dine with dogs at Yauatcha, Soho and there’s always limited seating at Granger’s on Pavilion Road. So as we become more of an outdoor city, well, it might open up a few more places for us to dine with our dogs.

All birthdays must involve blowing out a candle and I had mine at The Mitre Hotel – where we had lunch before going on a boat ride on the River Thames.

I had such a lovely day and counting my blessings. There’s a paperweight on the shelf above my desk that says “what would you attempt to do if you knew you could to fail?”

A few things came to mind but as is, life is full. Of course we should always strife to do more. But with each passing year, I am grateful to be alive, thankful for all the experiences I’ve had and to love those who makes it all worthwhile.

The celebrations continued and finally a week later, tomorrow will be the last birthday celebration when I finally get to see my godson, Edgar and his sister Katja for the final bash! It will be interesting what we will do next year, if we should be allowed to travel abroad freely again – will I stay and enjoy the day or run off far away and pamper myself?

And as Darcy mentioned earlier, we even managed to escape for a day – more on that later in the week.

The private boat hire can be arranged by The Mitre Hotel in Hampton Court – we will write more about this another day, or it can be hired directly from Harts Boats and Boards