As the song goes, it’s my birthday too, yeah!

No, not actually mine, that’s in January (refer back to Posts 11 of 18th January 2019, 67 of 10th January 2020 and 117 of 3rd February 2021 to see how we celebrated. Obviously we stopped after that or I decided my birthday was not exciting enough to report on).

However, it is a good day to post this, as today is 75 years since George Orwell’s 1984 was published. A significant year (read on). I’ve not (re)read the book for a while, possibly a bit too scary in these times. Let’s think of more cheerful occasions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyrrylklzjdo

I may have mentioned that the end of April and beginning of May is a busy time for birthdays in JD’s family. I think over the period of a fortnight or so we have six or seven (I never get the same number when I add them up. I just buy a load of cards and hope I’ve not forgotten anyone). This year we had three very significant numbers over three generations, although two of them were reluctant to admit to it. A fourth one, although not a significant number in the UK, is elsewhere in the world: 15 years old (the oldest of the 3F’s) sharing her day with JD. I will stick (mainly) with JD’s 75th, possibly touching lightly on the others.

You might think it not customary to celebrate your 75th but as JD loves a party, he felt fully justified in having a three-quarter century beano. How can we possibly object?

But first, in March, we celebrated his mam’s birthday (mentioning no numbers, but the King and Queen did send a card). We had a lovely weekend in Tynemouth at the Grand Hotel: the sun shone on us and the beach was busy with exercise classes and people walking along the strand with their dogs.

The Grand Hotel Tynemouth

In April we didn’t have the customary weekend party at our house for George’s mates due to his now living in Shanghai, but we did attend a delightful afternoon tea at Amberley Castle for JD’s eldest daughter’s birthday (she can expect a card from the King, whoever he is then, in 2074. Don’t think I’ll be around for that one).

https://www.amberleycastle.co.uk/

In May we come to the main subject of today’s Blog Post.

I had the idea that, for my next birthday, I might charter a river cruise up the Thames, having seen a rather magnificent cruiser pass by one day.

However, before I managed to copyright this idea, SOMEONE pinched it. Admittedly, May is a better month to go onto the river than January, but it’s left me looking for other exciting options.

The boat is called the Silver Barracuda and is in a 30’s Art Deco style, which would have fitted in with the decorations of my Dive Bar at home (not that I’m feeling miffed at my idea being hijacked, honest). Instead of going with this as the theme (as I might have done), JD had a ‘dress as you wish – relaxed, stylish, fancy, fun’ theme. NO imagination.

We had spent some time going through the food and drinks offered by the company (Woods, highly recommended, I’ll not charge you commission for using my idea. Just invite me along).

Woods Quay

Of course, we needed a cocktail and what better than to adapt the classic French 75 for such an auspicious occasion? This, in case I’ve not detailed it in an earlier Post, is made up of gin, lemon juice, sugar syrup and champagne. JD wanted something a bit summery (poor lad is convinced early May is summertime in the UK. Anyone who has attended one of his past birthday parties will know they are renowned for torrential rain, wind and cold).

Obviously we had to try various combinations of ingredients and, once we had the flavour we wanted, various proportions of said ingredients.

What did we use? It has to be fizz for a birthday (but for a change, Cremant d’Alsace) and gin and lemon juice to give some bite. Then, to celebrate the English summer, it has to be strawberries. For a bit of interest, instead of the traditional herb borage (as in Pimm’s) we decided on basil.

Having decided these basic ingredients, we made some at home with fresh strawberries and basil: muddle (technical mixologists’ word for mash) the strawberries and basil then strain into the gin with the lemon juice and top up with fizz. If you have time and patience, infuse for a few days before adding the fizz. We had five or six glasses of different proportions when we started but somehow got confused on which was which. Can’t begin to imagine why.

The following weekend we were more scientific and kept written notes. As this was essentially a JD enterprise, we had to buy lots of stuff. Two more mixing beakers plus (thinking ahead for the boat and convenience of making the cocktail in bulk) strawberry puree, strawberry syrup and strawberry liqueur (two brands, for comparison). Basil syrup and basil liqueur: I hadn’t realised you could buy such exotic ingredients. Thankfully we didn’t decide to try different gins as well or we’d not be ready before JD’s 100th birthday.

We handed the final recipe (concoction? Not sure if there’s an approved word for cocktails) over to Woods for their chaps to try out. The final version was very acceptable.

The main improvement was to strain the basil / strawberry / lemon mix after letting it infuse for some time, and adding the gin at the end, just in case it wasn’t all used (don’t want to waste the gin). We decided not to use Pao gin but had bottles on the bar for people to try. If you want to buy it, you (currently) have to visit Sitges (just south of Barcelona). Looking back at this picture, I feel a bit disappointed that we didn’t do the life jacket drill.

JD, his mam and I boarded the boat at Woods Quay opposite the Southbank Centre and sailed in splendour down to St Katherine’s Dock (where, you might remember, Clipper 2019 set off, see Posts 40 and 41 dated August 2019). We were spotted coming under Tower Bridge, excitement was mounting!

A fair number of guests were JD’s Unicef crew. One who couldn’t make it was Richard from Northern Ireland, but in his place he sent part of the mainsail that had been around the world with JD and the others. Everyone at the party signed it then JD lead them in the ‘Unicef shout’ as he had done coming into each port.

There were lots of cakes for the different birthdays, they are dotted around this Post. I’m not sure about biting into a cupcake with someone’s face on it, but I don’t think there’s any superstition about it.

That’s it now for a while, we have a dearth of summer birthdays. JD’ll have to think of another idea for more parties.