Dad.

It's my dad's 70th birthday today and managing to get a portrait of him without him noticing and more importantly without him pulling strange faces (he's chewed gum constantly ever since he gave up smoking 6 years ago) was quite a feat! I'm happy with this one though, even if his hand does look a wee bit disembodied - you should have see the other 20 photos he didn't notice me taking....

We've had a really lovely day. Claire, Clark and Clark's girlfriend Sarah came up yesterday (even though dad was most put out at the thought of anyone travelling any distance just for his birthday) and mum and dad arrived back from another birthday do they'd been at in Peebles. So it was really nice to have all the immediate family here - and we all managed not to brain each other either so that was even better!

It's always incredibly difficult getting presents for my dad because there just isn't anything that he ever really wants and over the years I think the most enthusiastic response any of us have ever had to a gift is "Oh...thats nice. Yes....mmhmm" so it was with some trepidation that we all clubbed together and got him a powered golf caddy. And amazingly it was the right thing! I've never seen him so pleased, turns out it was the very thing he'd been thinking about getting for himself.

So that started us off well and we proceeded to have a big family lunch of lorne sausage and bacon rolls, then a bit of a nap (...well, for me...) before heading off to The Storehouse for coffees and carrot cake. Now I think about it we should have told them it was his birthday, m+d are in there almost daily and know all the staff by name so they'd have made a fuss of him. Hmmm....which he would have hated so probably it was best not to!

Dad and I are hugely into our Whodunnit telly, with Poirot being our most favourite (closely followed by Midsomer Murders and a whole raft of british detective capers from the likes of Waking The Dead to Hetty Wainthrope Invesigates. Yes, seriously). So when mum came up with the idea of doing a murder mystery game we were all most enthusiastic and wholeheartedly embraced our characters without letting on to dad what was happening until the last minute.
I think he was a little confused as to why I was wandering around with pigtails, freckles and a calculator (Heidi Evidence, Swiss Banker) and mum looked like Manuel from faulty towers but with lots of pairs of scissors and a comb (Herr Cutt, German Barber). Claire looked like an extra from Allo, Allo with a dodgy accent to match (Kiki D'leggs, Cancan Dancer), Clark was got up in a leather jacket and flat cap, carrying around a bottle of vodka and seemed to come from somewhere between Moscow and Leith (Ivan Ego, Russian Inventor) and Sarah was in a Mac and kept talking about hidden meanings (Dee Cipher, Codebreaker). We made dad don a shirt and bow tie and led him into the dining room where he found out he was Sigmund Froid (Chilly Psychatrist) and we were all on the Disoriented Express where a murder had been committed!

It was so much fun and we all had a real laugh doing it over dinner and uncovering the clues. None of us knew who the murderer was and we did the game in sections with the assistance of Guard E. Lou on the computer. I wont give the game away incase anyone else wants to have a go, but lets just say that Heidi Evidence was as sharp as she looked and I worked out the killer and won the game! (All those whodunnits have clearly paid off, I'm practically a detective. They should just give me a badge and be done with it.)

I could tell you that I also won our next game of Balderdash beating everyone else hands down, but I don't like to brag!

Most importantly I think dad had a great birthday and really enjoyed himself despite how Bah Humbug he'd been about it all earlier! :O)