What a weekend!

Indeed what a weekend (and what a week so far.....its been rather busy hence the late blogging about the weekend). As you may have gathered it was my birthday last week! And to celebrate in style I bought tickets for a few friends to go to a ceilidh on Saturday night. First, ten of us piled into Buonissimo in Harborne. This splendid little restaurant is at the end of a road where I lived as a student, not that it was there then, and so I was a little nostalgic as we dashed in (I was fashionably late!). Though quite a small menu, the food was delicious - lots of piatti and less pasta which was rather nice for a change. The puddings were great too though I think we managed to share my Baileys and Sambucca cheesecake between three as it was rather rich! Then on to St Mary's parish centre for a Bard ceilidh - traditional scottish dancing (or irish or english these days). Our band for the evening the Flos Headford band and our caller was Flos's wife Sheila Mainwaring. They had us whirling round the dance floor and generally throwing ourselves into it with gusto! The three hour dance went by in a flash and soon it was time to rest our weary feet.
On Sunday Dougal, Wampe and I meandered round the Olton resevoir to get the blood pumping again, spotting a gold crest zipping about in the undergrowth. Mum and Dad joined us and we had more cake (a very yummy bannoffee variety, in fact birthday cake number 5!). For dinner we pottered into town to Cielo - where we were welcomed warmly and looked after very well all evening. I had zingy fettuccine al limone, melt in the mouth halibut al vino blanco and finally macedonia di frutta with a little glass of Eylsium! How fabulous!! (The pictures are of Dougal's tea - prawns, sea bass and tartufato) I'll have to turn thirty more often!! Lastly a big thank you to all my friends and family for a fabulous time at the various celebrations over the last week and a special one to J for getting me home in one piece on Tuesday night!