Fifty - Not Out!

After a glorious spell of weather for the preceding 3 weeks, when the temperatures were in the 20's, and the garden was looking lovely (thanks ENTIRELY to my own fair hands, I may add) the day of the big birthday promised to be wet and cold. 

G's birthday BBQ is an annual event, and quite frequently (although not last year) has to be postponed at short notice due to precipitation.  This year though it had to go ahead on the day, regardless, because we were going on holiday two days later, and on our return it would be full steam ahead with wedding plans. 

Two days before, he enlisted help to erect two monstrous event shelters, so that everyone could be snug and warm inside.  We woke on the day to torrential rain, and me to a sore throat which got worse by the minute until my voice went completely.  The potatoes which were going to be baked or made into potato salad were instead transformed into steaming pans of Stovies (one veggie, one not), which were then served up with many tumblers of fine malt whisky to the satisfaction of all. 

But where did the birthday boy and his cronies end up?  Yep, not out in the shelters, but inside the garage (cunningly converted into a party palace by dint of the application of a couple of strands of bunting).

At 2.30am in the morning, I turned into my own late father, by storming out into the howling gale and pouring rain to demand - loudly - that everyone GO HOME NOW! 

Mr Malt came to bed, smugly, about 30 minutes later, and snuggled down full of fine whisky and snooziness while the remaining chums were consigned to sleeping bags and camp-beds in the garage or under canvas. 

Nobody seemed to mind too much.