steve+diane’s 25th

Moira+I are lucky enough to have lots of wonderful friends who are younger than us. This policy has, of course, been nurtured over several years - with the express intention of trying to kid everyone that we’re MUCH younger than we really are (needless to say, our friends haven’t be fooled). We’ve just got back from a wonderful weekend in a massive country house and converted barn in the beautiful Staffordshire countryside. There were 39 of us in total – all there to celebrate our very special friends’ (Steve+Diane) 25th wedding anniversary. It was just brilliant – we walked, talked, ate, drank(!) and laughed our way through the entire weekend in glorious surroundings and perfect weather. Steve+Diane are AMAZING, generous, lovely people (click here to check out Steve’s 50th birthday celebrations from 4 years ago, for example!). As usual, they’d thought of EVERYTHING – two large fridges were STACKED with bottles of champagne, white wine and beer (note: when we left, the other fridge was jammed full of left-over lasagna from Friday night, copious quantities of exotic cheeses and pizzas …. along with a whole host of other stuff). Outside caterers provided us all with a superb banquet last night and this morning (because we were all clearly in need of yet more food), some of the “boys” cooked up a fantastic full English breakfast – which, of course, we ate outside in glorious sunshine (as you do)…. followed by a “serious” game of boules on the gravelled turning circle (which immediately took on the character of a French town square) in front of the main house.
Happy times, wonderful friends.
Photo: of course, I totally failed to take pictures of lots of happy people consuming food and/or quaffing alcohol. This is the nearest I’ve got – just a few of the party having reserved their seats early - in anticipation of the “Big Breakfast” (and some consuming black coffee or, in Julie’s case, water in a vain attempt to alleviate their hangovers)!