a belated birthday celebration

There's nothing quite like one of your baby brothers, whose birth day you remember so well, turning 21. Yep. My baby brother Rich was 21 years old last Thursday. The other one will be 21 in five years time. Blimey, they're getting so old.

Mummy and Pops came up for the weekend to spend his birthday with him in South London and I hosted a belated birthday lunch for them all today. It was also James's birthday on Thursday (the big 3-0) so we had a lovely double celebration.

Rich's birthday gift, bought on Etsy from John Scarratt

Late in the morning, Rich started his journey from the very leafy south to the... well, less leafy north of London with his girlfriend Alex; Ma, Pa and the youngest, Will, headed over from my Granny's where they had been staying; my Godmother drove from even further north than we are; and James, Yoyo and I busied ourselves with getting the new flat* in order. 

My morning was spent in the kitchen, cooking up a feast; a feast that was utterly demolished within 20 minutes of my laying it on the table:

I baked a loaf of sun-dried tomato bread, a loaf of olive bread, made some super garlicky humous, some hotter-than-I-had-anticipated-but-still-pretty-good-even-if-I-do-say-so-myself salsa, a roasted beetroot salad - I am obsessed with beetroot at the moment, potato skins loaded with a creamy, herby filling, a tomato and mozzarella salad and cut up plenty of veggies to dip in the humous.

Oh yeah, and an enormous white chocolate cheesecake for pudding.

N-Y-O-M!

In all the busyness, I got a huge paper cut across my left palm and a very sore scratch near my right eye, though I'm not sure how... all I know is, having had chilli juice on my hand probably didn't help with soothing either of them.

I am completely shattered now, and off to bed. It was so worth it though - it was an excellent day.

*I'm not sure how long I will be referring to it as the 'new' flat - it's been 6 weeks now, and although it still feels new, it feels settled-in at the same time, quite odd.