Birthdays are a blessing

I feel so blessed to reach the 60 year milestone and yesterday I received an unwelcome reminder of that! I have a couple of food intolerances and it looks like one of them has now led me down the anaphylactic reaction path! Very, very scary to feel your windpipe close over but after 7 hours in emergency with loads of adrenaline and cortisone all is well. I do have to take an Epipen with me at all times now and will have some serious allergy testing done in the New Year. But I also feel incredibly blessed that we have such a great hospital emergency department so close to home. So today it felt wonderful to return with a basket load of our famous Haighs Chocolates to thank the emergency team personally. So a brief summary of my special day on the 18th where we had the most fabulous lunch at Serafino's winery with the family..........

 Presents are always exciting.........

 There was a fabulous jazz pianist playing in the background and best of all hardly any Christmas decorations - apparently they don't put them up until Christmas Eve. I think that is so thoughtful for those of us who have birthdays so close to Christmas........

 Some of us had lamb fillet, beef, duck and salmon........

 The grounds are gorgeous.......

 Love the suspended lighting........

 And the look on my face as I was unwrapping was the result of these gifts......very special with co-ordinating art work from Beau and Maisie.......

 During the week I also received this gorgeous glass sculpture from Kay and I adore it (thankyou Kay x)...

 So the house is decorated with Christmas and birthday cards........

 and also flowers from family.......

 and these from Jude.......thanks Judy - they are still going strong x......

 And gifts from Dot in the mail are always exciting!! A necklace in my colours and the most delicious strawberry that she tells me is a cord weight. I think it might be for making twisted thread cords? Thankyou Dot x........

We enjoy watching the birdlife that bathe frequently and have been observing a new family of blackbirds learning life skills........ ....... 

 but this life skill of digging went a little too far with the remains of a little succulent growing in my Morris cup upended and left on a seat..........

 This past week we have had some spectacular sunsets reflecting the colour in one of my roses.....

 So only a few days to Christmas and we are expecting a very hot day of 40C (104F to those of you in the Northern hemisphere!). So I hope wherever you are that life is treating you well. We'll catch up again soon x