![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I'm currently recovering from an enjoyable but tiring couple of days. On Thursday night I went to the leaving do of someone who works in my office but not my team. I didn't think I'd stay for long as I don't know the guy very well, however, I got chatting and ended up staying until closing time. I also managed to have a bit too much to drink and didn't sleep very well as I kept waking up feeling dehydrated. I went to bed fairly early on Friday but had to get up quite early as I had to catch a train at noon.
On Saturday, I spent the day in Hampshire visiting a friend who is expecting a baby on 11th June. It wasn't an official baby shower, more a gathering of friends but we still went ahead and bought lots of pressies for the impending new arrival. We decided to follow the tradition we started with the last member of our group to have a baby and made a nappy cake. I think nappy cakes are an American idea. It's basically just a way of packing baby gifts together in a fancy way. You can buy them ready made online on sites like this one: www.newbabybundle.co.uk/unisex-gifts/new-baby-bundle-in-lemon.html but last time one of our friends volunteered to make one as we would have more control over what went in it that way. It turned out that our friend was a very proficient nappy cake creator and it looked amazing so I figured that we would be able to create something similar this time around. I arranged for us all to meet last Tuesday to put the masterpiece together. Unfortunately, the friend with previous experience had to pull out at the last minute as she had to work. She gave detailed verbal instructions to one of the other girls and someone else looked it up on the net but we were still a bit nervous. In the end it didn't look too bad. The basic idea is to put all the heavy stuff on a cake board, put several layers of disposable nappies around the outside to create a fairly solid cake, use the less heavy stuff to build up to the second layer, put another 'shell' of nappies around layer number two, cover the whole lot with muslins so it's all the same colour, tie it all together with elastic bands and ribbons and finally top it off with a little toy. It wasn't as good as the one my friend did before but all in all I think it was a good first effort. We were a bit worried about it surviving the train journey to Hampshire in one piece but it was absolutely fine. I was especially pleased that our friend and her husband liked the contents of the cake as I had chosen them all. I volunteered to do the shopping as I work next door to a retail park which features massive branches of Boots and Mothercare. The friend who made the last one sent through a detailed list of ingredients so I thought I'd be fine. I soon realised that the baby aisle of Boots is like a foreign country to those of us who have no kids! I had no idea there was such a huge range of nappies and bottles etc. I also realised that it's very difficult to buy stuff for newborns when you don't know the sex. It seems absurd that there isn't a wider range. I would have liked to buy yellow or green stuff but most of it ended up being very 'neutral' beige type colours. The most difficult thing to get was a sun hat as those are very gender specific.
Another friend had found some games to play which were good fun. We had to cut pictures out of magazines to put together a picture of a baby that we thought would look most like the new arrival (not easy - pictures are all different sizes so babies ended up looking like badly put togethe photo fits). We also had to fit in the missing words of nursery rhymes. None of us remembered that Little Jack Horner was eating his 'Christmas' pie! Finally, we had to put balloons up our tops and try and pick up the most beans from the floor. The pregnant lady found this very amusing to watch. One of the boys won, annoyingly.
It was a fun day and it's strange to think that next time I see my friends there will be one more baby in the group.
We left about 7pm and I made my way to deepest Surbiton for my sister's 28th birthday party. She had chosen a 1940s tea party theme and it was definitely a triumph of style. They had decorated the garden with bunting and 1940s posters and got a bone china tea service from ebay. We had to drink from our tea cups and cocktails were served from a teapot. My sister had also made very pretty cupcakes. It was a really enjoyable evening which ended with some enthusiastic dancing in the living room to 1990s dance music. I left at 2am and due to the fact the two night buses I catch home don't link up very well I didn't get in until 3am which explains why I'm feeling very tired today.
On a different topic entirely, I was saddened to read about the death of the Australian actor Bill Hunter. I really love a lot of Australian comedy movies and he played a big part in many of them. I re-watched Strictly Ballroom quite recently and was reminded of his very funny performance as a corrupt, egotystical regional ballroom dancing judge. The world of Australian movies will be a less rich place without him. I feel the need to watch Priscilla again. Also a fabulous film.
This week is likely to be very busy at work. I'm out training on Wednesday and Thursday which means packing a lot more into the other three days. Thank goodness next Monday is a Bank Holiday so I have some extra recovery time.
I'm also quite excited as I've just to my ticket for the Sunday of the Lovebox weekender. 2ManyDJs here I come!
On Saturday, I spent the day in Hampshire visiting a friend who is expecting a baby on 11th June. It wasn't an official baby shower, more a gathering of friends but we still went ahead and bought lots of pressies for the impending new arrival. We decided to follow the tradition we started with the last member of our group to have a baby and made a nappy cake. I think nappy cakes are an American idea. It's basically just a way of packing baby gifts together in a fancy way. You can buy them ready made online on sites like this one: www.newbabybundle.co.uk/unisex-gifts/new-baby-bundle-in-lemon.html but last time one of our friends volunteered to make one as we would have more control over what went in it that way. It turned out that our friend was a very proficient nappy cake creator and it looked amazing so I figured that we would be able to create something similar this time around. I arranged for us all to meet last Tuesday to put the masterpiece together. Unfortunately, the friend with previous experience had to pull out at the last minute as she had to work. She gave detailed verbal instructions to one of the other girls and someone else looked it up on the net but we were still a bit nervous. In the end it didn't look too bad. The basic idea is to put all the heavy stuff on a cake board, put several layers of disposable nappies around the outside to create a fairly solid cake, use the less heavy stuff to build up to the second layer, put another 'shell' of nappies around layer number two, cover the whole lot with muslins so it's all the same colour, tie it all together with elastic bands and ribbons and finally top it off with a little toy. It wasn't as good as the one my friend did before but all in all I think it was a good first effort. We were a bit worried about it surviving the train journey to Hampshire in one piece but it was absolutely fine. I was especially pleased that our friend and her husband liked the contents of the cake as I had chosen them all. I volunteered to do the shopping as I work next door to a retail park which features massive branches of Boots and Mothercare. The friend who made the last one sent through a detailed list of ingredients so I thought I'd be fine. I soon realised that the baby aisle of Boots is like a foreign country to those of us who have no kids! I had no idea there was such a huge range of nappies and bottles etc. I also realised that it's very difficult to buy stuff for newborns when you don't know the sex. It seems absurd that there isn't a wider range. I would have liked to buy yellow or green stuff but most of it ended up being very 'neutral' beige type colours. The most difficult thing to get was a sun hat as those are very gender specific.
Another friend had found some games to play which were good fun. We had to cut pictures out of magazines to put together a picture of a baby that we thought would look most like the new arrival (not easy - pictures are all different sizes so babies ended up looking like badly put togethe photo fits). We also had to fit in the missing words of nursery rhymes. None of us remembered that Little Jack Horner was eating his 'Christmas' pie! Finally, we had to put balloons up our tops and try and pick up the most beans from the floor. The pregnant lady found this very amusing to watch. One of the boys won, annoyingly.
It was a fun day and it's strange to think that next time I see my friends there will be one more baby in the group.
We left about 7pm and I made my way to deepest Surbiton for my sister's 28th birthday party. She had chosen a 1940s tea party theme and it was definitely a triumph of style. They had decorated the garden with bunting and 1940s posters and got a bone china tea service from ebay. We had to drink from our tea cups and cocktails were served from a teapot. My sister had also made very pretty cupcakes. It was a really enjoyable evening which ended with some enthusiastic dancing in the living room to 1990s dance music. I left at 2am and due to the fact the two night buses I catch home don't link up very well I didn't get in until 3am which explains why I'm feeling very tired today.
On a different topic entirely, I was saddened to read about the death of the Australian actor Bill Hunter. I really love a lot of Australian comedy movies and he played a big part in many of them. I re-watched Strictly Ballroom quite recently and was reminded of his very funny performance as a corrupt, egotystical regional ballroom dancing judge. The world of Australian movies will be a less rich place without him. I feel the need to watch Priscilla again. Also a fabulous film.
This week is likely to be very busy at work. I'm out training on Wednesday and Thursday which means packing a lot more into the other three days. Thank goodness next Monday is a Bank Holiday so I have some extra recovery time.
I'm also quite excited as I've just to my ticket for the Sunday of the Lovebox weekender. 2ManyDJs here I come!
