Surprise, Surprise

Sunday 22nd was a brilliant day, the sun and very warm weather made a return for Lynne's birthday and all the hard work put into organising a special day reached fruition with satisfying great success ( and relief).The plan by our youngest daughter was for all our children, plus partners and 5 granddaughters to arrive on the boat ( out of the blue, so to speak) and then have a birthday meal/ celebrations at the Dragon pub in Willington. Sounds simple until you consider the distances various family members live away and the young ages of the grandchildren. The cunning plan concocted by our youngest daughter was for all to overnight in our house and us to be on the boat, thus making sufficient bed space for them all and the opportunity for a spectacular surprise on birthday morning. Her problems were the difficulties of getting the family together for a weekend several hundred miles away from home and organising the meal and a joint present from them all. My problems were keeping it secret from Lynne, organising the house for visitors and persuading Lynne to vacate it for the weekend for no logical reason. simple.
Literally at the last moment a request was made to borrow our blow-up mattress. A frantic search of the house, sheds and loft revealed it must be somewhere on the boat, 50 minutes away. I had to convince Lynne one of our neighbours needed it and she very kindly offered to drive to the marina and back, bearing in mind she had already driven to London and back for her hair appoinment(as you do).
We reached the marina trying hard to keep each oher awake, only to find we had left the gate key behind. A kindly boater let us in and the blow-up mattress was found in a hide away under our bed.
Having returned the mattress to our neighbours my next job was  convincing Lynne to once again return to the boat and sleep on it. Lynne was sleep-driving by this time and not altogether happy with the arrangement, until 10.30 the following morning when the boat was boarded by screaming/smiling/singing grandchildren bearing gifts.
The meal went well, rounded-off by a birthday cake and the traditional song.
The day ended in our local Accident and emergency unit where they checked-out my leg, upped the painkiller and anti-biotic doseage before sending us home again We spent only 20 minutes in the unit, which must be some kind of a record, surely?

Apologies for the out of sequence publishing of this blog caused by internet connection problems