Lots of Cake and Cats

The birthday season has come round again!

Last week my parents came to stay for a few days to join us in celebrating a couple of birthdays.  They arrived with flowers and cake.

My mum always bakes my favourite boiled fruit cake for my birthday. 

We went out for a meal one evening.

The dessert was delicious!

I treated myself to a little gift from The Skein Queen.  Seriously, this photo doesn't do the yarn justice!

My friends were quite restrained with their choice of cards. They could have had a lot of fun with that figure! ;)

 My best friend spoilt me with lots of little gifts and this pretty necklace.

My main gift from my family is going to be a spinning wheel, but I am waiting to test one at a fibre festival later this summer.

I saved casting on Alicia Plummer's Thunderstorm MKAL until the afternoon of my birthday (look no further if you don't like spoilers) in Selkino I had bought at Unravel.

Phase 1 of the storm - The unusual stillness before a storm has gone and the wind has picked up, a hint of the storm to come.

The next day it was our son's birthday.

 More cake!  Fruit cake again as it is J's favourite too.

I made a mini Maurice to sit on top.  

 

 After lunch we headed into London to have high tea at a cat cafe.  The journey was awful so we ditched the car and travelled in by train, otherwise we would have been late.

 We certainly needed a cup of tea when we finally arrived

 and some cats to stroke!

More cake!!

 It was quite a feast! We couldn't eat all of it!

 Generally the cats were doing what cats do best ... snoozing! :)

Wookie had it down to a fine art! :)

 

 There were lots of toys around for the cats to play with,

but the bubble wrap seemed to be the most fun!

 All too soon it was time to leave the cats to their beauty sleep.

We had a little wander around the local area

 and had a nose around Covent Garden, but it was getting late by then and most shops were closing.

  We caught the train back to Woking, where we had left the car.  Woking is famous for being the place where H G Wells wrote "War of the Worlds" and down one of the streets there is a Hawker Hunter

 and a Martian!

 The next day was Father's Day and we stayed local with a walk in the woods.

 We saw lots of fungi,

including this luminous yellow one in a darker part of the woods.

It was a beautiful day for a walk.

Wild honeysuckle was scrambling over the trees

and there were lots of blooming spires of foxgloves.

 We were lucky to see two greater spotted woodpeckers

 and lots of speckled wood butterflies sunning themselves on the woodland paths.

 We also saw a deer and many grey squirrels who darted away at our approach.

 The birdsong was all around us; a calming way to spend the Sunday after a rather hectic two days.