Anniversary flowers and cakes

We have just celebrated our fortieth wedding anniversary. To be celebrated of course but it makes us feel very ancient. To try and ward off old age, we had a wee family party, bringing together some of our brothers and sisters, cousins and their assorted partners, our own adult children, nephews and nieces and a couple of small children from the next generation. I had described it as a ‘garden party’ on the invites and had been crossing my fingers for a dry day, while everyone else was praying for rain. Somehow the weather gods listened and provided us with a lovely sunny day so that people could spill out into the garden. Planning for the party, apart from praying for sunshine, involved trying to get the garden (and house) into a reasonably respectable state and hoping that some flowers would be at their best. Cleaning and dusting was done, furniture was moved about, hedges were trimmed, weeds were removed and flowers were encouraged to bloom. Nothing quite did what it was supposed…