{"id":993,"date":"2008-06-29T10:57:01","date_gmt":"2008-06-29T09:57:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=993"},"modified":"2008-06-29T10:57:01","modified_gmt":"2008-06-29T09:57:01","slug":"my-60th-birthday-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=993","title":{"rendered":"My 60th birthday celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Although my 60th birthday was earlier in the week (see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/2008\/06\/today_i_am_60.html\">posting on Wednesday<\/a>), it was yesterday that we had a gathering of family and friends to celebrate the event &#8211; and it was truly wonderful day.<br \/>\nThe venue &#8211; organised by my wife Vee &#8211; was the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.grimsdyke.com\/\">Grim&#8217;s Dyke Hotel<\/a>, a country house that used to be occupied by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.grimsdyke.com\/history.htm\">Sir William Gilbert<\/a> (of Gilbert &#038; Sullivan fame). The actual location was the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.grimsdyke.com\/pri-music.htm\">Music Room<\/a> which has a floor to ceiling carved Alabaster fireplace and a minstrels gallery. The weather was wonderful and the food and service excellent.<br \/>\nNo less than 63 of us (including seven children) gathered for the celebration. Vee offered some welcoming words and our son Richard gave a short toast. I then took the opportunity of a captive audience to give a speech which paid tribute to some of the people who had influenced each of the first six decades of my life and were present at the party. Finally Georgeanne and Andy led a sing-song in my honour.<br \/>\nI received an embarrassing number of gifts. There were no less than 16 books, so I&#8217;ll have a busy summer. There were three bottles of champagne, so Vee and I can be very merry. There were two presents picking up on the year of my birth (1948): a full set of British coins for that year and an original edition of &#8220;The Aeroplane&#8221; magazine for the actual day of my birth. A really fun gift was a floating globe using clever magnets and technology. Then I was given  a token for a flight in a glider. There were another 19 cards, making a total of 46, plus 20 electronic messages. I had no idea I had so many friends!<br \/>\nTruly I am blessed with a wonderful family and a fantastic set of friends and I thank them all for making this day so very special.<br \/>\n<center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/partyA.jpg\"  border=3><br \/><font size=\"-2\">Roger gives his sister Silvia a big cuddle <br \/>while James Peixoto looks on<\/font><\/center><br \/>\n<center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/PartyB.jpg\"  border=3><br \/><font size=\"-2\">Roger behind David &#038; Sharon, Vee&#8217;s nephew and his wife<\/font><\/center><br \/>\n<center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/PartyC.jpg\"  border=3><br \/><font size=\"-2\">Roger hugs the mother of his Chinese &#8216;son&#8217; Zhihao<\/font><\/center><br \/>\n<center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/PartyD.jpg\"  border=3><br \/><font size=\"-2\">Little and large: Vee with Roger&#8217;s half-brother Chris<\/font><\/center><\/p>\n<p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although my 60th birthday was earlier in the week (see posting on Wednesday), it was yesterday that we had a gathering of family and friends to celebrate the event &#8211; and it was truly wonderful day. The venue &#8211; organised by my wife Vee &#8211; was the Grim&#8217;s Dyke Hotel, a country house that used [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}