James' Birthday

We celebrated James' 51st birthday this evening with a nice tea, cake and presents. For tea I tried to recreate the delicious gnocchi dish I had at the Hilton Doubletree in London recently; the sauce included sun dried tomatoes, broad beans and sliced salami. It turned out very nice although James thought that a chunkier Italian sausage would have been better. Then we had birthday cake with two number candles; a five and a one. James had already seen the candles lying on a shelf earlier which reduced the element of surprise. We all sang Happy Birthday and Jamie phoned to wish him a Happy Birthday too. The boys clubbed together to buy him a Game of Thrones box set, which pleased him greatly. My present to him was a photography tutorial in a few weeks time in Glencoe with Colin Prior, a photographer whose mountain photographs James likes very much. They will set off from Glasgow at 5.30 a.m. so that they can be on the mountains in time for dawn! Then they will have lunch in Ballachulish before they head home. James seemed very happy with this although he says that he will need to practise using his SLR camera again because he has been getting into the habit of using it on automatic. James popped over to see Grandma then we sat down to have some cake and watch an episode of Game of Thrones. I think that James has had a pleasant birthday.