My birthday celebration weekend

I know I had a birthday party in Los Angeles at the end of June but I think you can't celebrate too often so I arranged for Alison and Sian and Vanessa to come to Oxford for the weekend (10 days ago). Jane and kids were already here and of course the Gees are in residence. I added to this family group a few neighbour/friends and we had drinks and birthday cake on Friday evening. Rachel made the cake and Charlie, Chloe, Catherine and Sam decorated it. Adam's contribution was to blow out the candles. Why do your own blowing when you have a four year old who is so good at it.
On Saturday we had a girl fest at the local day spa. Rachel and Alison had pregnancy massages in the morning whilst Sian and Vanessa went to Nigel's coffee morning which is a regular Saturday morning event. He is a neighbour and also a painter and writer so it's a treat to spend an hour or so at Nigel's. In the afternoon, Sian, Jane, Vanessa and I went to the Spa for "The Spa Experience". We spent two fantastic hours in the inner sanctum which they had reserved for the sole use of our quartet. First we were in to the jacuzzi to warm up and soften up then we went in two's into the mud chamber. They had provided us with a plate with six different colours of mud and a piece of paper with written instructions as to which bits of our body would benefit from which colour. Jane and I went in together and; once coated with mud, we sat in big plasic seats, closed the door and turned on the steam. The lights went out and we sat under a "canopy of stars". This was actually holes in the ceiling but it was a good effect. The steam came out of an Oriental, Buddha kind of thing on the wall. At the end of half an hour, we were supposed to experience the "tropical rainfall". Water was meant to come out of tiny holes above our big plastic seat, wash off the mud and go down a drainhole in the seat. It was a bit of a dribble so we ended up under the proper shower before lying on loungers to finish off our time. Two things stood out and made this a truly English experience. Beside the lounger was a pull cord which we were told to pull if we wanted a glass of wine (in America it would have been green tea). Included with our towels and dressing gowns was a packet of crisps (potato chips) - ham and mustard flavour.All things considered, I would say this was a repeatable experience. Catherine and Chloe had manicures. Saturday evening we all went to dinner at Cafe Noir. Excellent.

But that's not all! On Sunday I christened my two new dining room tables by having family Sunday lunch for 13. It was brilliant. What a great family I have. I was only sorry that Daniel, Michelle, Olivia, Craig and Ryan couldn't be there.