"Runnin' on"

Janet explores her elationships with old friends and previews a forthcoming 21st

Well, here we are, Christmas is over, there are still two Christmas puddings in the cupboard. I haven't revealed two homemade Christmas puddings yet, they will come out on a day when we find that the cupboard is bare. Of course by then we will be very hungry and willing to eat anything. There will be a grand celebration when we have eaten both "Made by Mum puddings", I will be able to use the basins again!

For some years now, Mr T and I have been running an open house to one of my fellow sufferers at school, Val lives in Australia with her Aussie husband Herb, fortunately we all get on really well. The men haven't written to each other but Val and I have a good old airmail natter and relay the gathered information to our other halves. Val did amaze us with a phone call once. A stern talking to would have been delivered to me if I had done that!

Actually, I prefer the letters, I can re-read them at any time, and believe me, with my memory, I need to keep all of them for future reference. How would I feel if I couldn't remember their dog's name? (by the way ,it's Julio!)

Excitement ran high in the Tilburn household this month; our eldest granddaughter reached her 21st. birthday. If anyone had been honest about her first few months they would have admitted that she had the best pair of lungs they had ever been unfortunate enough to hear. I love babies, but our Hayley really drove us all to distraction.

As daughter Debra and her girls live in Didcot, we set off with a vehicle full of assorted Tilburns, we all behaved ourselves and racked our brains for "Things to do on a fairly long journey". We've all been there, haven't we?

Daughter Debra had organised a wonderful party, it started quietly, and we only knew about half of the guests so we did our best to put a name to the faces of all the others. Meanwhile the children had found the Party Poppers, I thought we all looked rather elegant festooned with multi coloured streamers.

Cameras were covering the entire room, flashing all the time. It was quite a relief when the food was served, lovely it was too. I felt very proud of Hayley, she has battled on with asthma all her life and she's still a bundle of fun. I reckon Hayley's boyfriend has helped her, we all like him, our family has found another friend.

Janet Tilburn