Brighton - Dad's 70th birthday party
Saturday 10/21/06
Saturday is the big day! I get to meet all the Briginshaw clan! Lunch is at 1:30pm at Alfresco's an Italian place on the seaside. Some of the guests are coming to Papa Tony's house before we head to the restaurant. John goes running and Grandpa B (aka Papa Tony) and I get ready. Just as I finish looking pretty by putting on my version of makeup (lipstick and eyeliner), the first guests arrive. Tony's brother Rob, wife Jenny and 16 year-old twin sons James and John come in. Rob is still parking the car while the rest of his family are in the apartment. It did not take long for her and I to strike up a conversation with snippets of it being I am a twin as well, my family are spread out over the United States, where is Jeffrey (by the way the Briginshaw clan all call my darling husband Jeffrey or Jaffa), would have liked to attend your wedding but the boys were taking GCSE, where do you live in CA, how do you find it, where did you two meet, etc. As you can see, lots to talk about for girls who just met each other. I thought it was frightfully funny when she said she had brought along a dress and decided against it for the combat gear - which was actually very close to what she was wearing. She has quite a delightful sense of humor.
Next enters Rob the head of household of the family that just came in. It is uncanny how much he and Tony look like each other. They have both grown their hair long which makes them both look like mob bosses from the old country. Tony has his free while Rob has his in a pony tail, both are about the same height and do almost the same things. Jenny and I are still on the sofa talking while Jeffrey walks in (Jeffrey from henceforth in this missive is really John). He is all sweaty and icky from his run and about 15 minutes later than he said he would be. I actually thought he was lost - I was trying very hard not to show my concern to Papa Tony because he was very pre-occupied with guests. Anyway, it was a great sigh of relief for me when he walks in.
Jenny is so happy to see him that she hugs him in his state of dripping perspiration. It is funny when John gets introduced to Jeffrey because it is a "John Briginshaw meet John Briginshaw' deal. When he finally cleaned up and came back to the living room for civilized conversation, he looked very much like the next Mafiosi in line because his wet hair was slicked back. I now wish I had taken a picture of the 3 of them together - hopefully someone else did. It was great to see everyone looking at old pictures and asking questions. Papa Tony has a great selection of pictures over the years. However, there isn't a picture of Rob around which generated a lot of questions on his part. By the way, Rob and his family call Papa Tony "Shoto" which is Japanese for something I was not really able to figure it out except they come up with interesting names to call each other. I was thinking Gai Jin was appropriate but they did not ask my opinion.
Next to come up were Jane, Anthony, Elena, and Alfred. Jane is Papa Tony's half sister. Elena (3 year old) was quite shy and Alfred, who is 15 months old, was just a delight. He was smiling and seemed totally oblivious to the growing number of people around. Bear in mind that this Jane is not the sister of my Jeffrey (aka John), although her brother is called Jeff and the sister of my Jeffrey is called Jane. Got it?
Following are Jeff, Monica, and Cameron. Jeff is also Tony's half brother and full brother to Jane. Their son Cameron is 4 and appears to love dusting. Jeffrey and I offer to adopt him. Names start getting confusing here because Jeffrey, my husband, answers to John, Jeffrey-John, Jeff, and Jaffa. Every time someone would call on Jeff, Jeffrey would also answer - I was having a great time watching it all.
Since we are meeting Jane, Pete, and Thomas at the restaurant the only person left is Gloria. Gloria comes in last and she is the widow of Papa Tony and Rob's elder brother Terry. She is a delight, I think I am beginning to overuse the word, but she really is. There is a picture of her on the hearth as well which was taken in the 80s, I believe, and she does not look much older than that picture - the only real difference is her hair is grey. (Jane and Jeffrey, my ones, later joke they suspect a Faustian bargain somewhere along the line!). She made it in from London - there was some issue with the train service in the morning so she has to take some bus/taxi/train combination to get here. She is quite a trooper.
Since the gang was all assembled and Jane et al were at the restaurant it was time to head down. John tricked Jane slightly into believing we were going to be there early so she could make it there on time. It was about a 15 to 20 minute walk to the restaurant and I was amazed at how well Elena handled it - she did not cry once to get picked up. After a final count and Jane, Pete, and Thomas got their "I haven't seen you in a long time!" hugs we went inside to settle down at a long set of tables set up for us.
The long and short of lunch was it was delightful with everyone laughing and carrying on and getting reintroduced. Gosh, it was so many people that it was overwhelming. Between the din at the table and that of the other restaurant patrons it was almost hard to hear. I wish I had taken Jeff's lead and gone outside with the children for a bit of fresh air under the guise of the children wanted to play outside in the playground. Since I get a little shy around too many new people it was all a bit too much in the beginning but once I started participating in conversation snippets it was all good. Lunch ended with speeches from both Papa Tony and Jeffrey thanking everyone for coming. I had another piece of cheese cake for dessert but it did not come close to the one I had in Salisbury.
It was interesting hearing about what everyone did. I talked to Anthony who worked with the railroads and the easiest way to describe what he does is he makes sure the railroads provide the best possible service for their passengers. His wife Jane is an architect who now is working on a big project that is redeveloping and redesigning schools all over the country - how cool!
John, Rob's son, is an aspiring musician who loves the drums or metals and the trumpet. James on the other hand did not talk much and I forgot to ask what Jenny and Rob do. Anyway, I was too busy answering Jenny's questions to ask my own. When she called Sunday to talk Mrs. Briginshaw to Mrs. Briginshaw (that is really what she said!), she said the boys were all quite enthralled by the international bent to the Briginshaw family. Which reminds me, towards the end of lunch, Jenny asked me if I like the "Highlander" series - I thought she was talking about the TV series and I said definitely there can be only one and it pays that the hero is cute. I later figured out she was talking about the Sean Connery series of movies. We used the word "series" to mean slightly different things. She also asked me if I like the Warlock movies - I admitted I had only watched the first one which I did like - I think the fact I had not watched all of the dropped me down a notch in her view. On a personal note, it is hard after being considered a Jato for so long to think of myself as a Briginshaw as well. I have to work on that! :)
Saturday evening started with a short nap and a jaunt over to the hotel to have an evening drink with Jane and Pete. The baby monitor was put into service one more time. We were all a little pooped but the evening still ended at about 1:15am because we were chatting about everything and nothing. We were watching the well heeled folks come in and out of a wedding reception next door and continue their festivities at the bar. The waiter this evening was not as good he was late to the table with practically everything. No matter, we were there for the long haul.
It was finally time to head back to Tony's flat because Pete was falling asleep and I was not sure I was up to walking home. We promised to meet for breakfast the next morning. Since I had not had much to eat (olives and crackers are not dinner) I wanted to get some chips (fries) from one of the shops along the seafront. Jeffrey and I stopped at the one that was open. We waited for a good 10-15 minutes to order but they seemed backlogged and not very efficient. We left because it appeared we would have to wait another 10 minutes. Humph! Anyway, in the time I was there I noticed they were selling fried battered sausage! Screaming arteries! Apart from sausage being a debatable meat product, it was battered and fried. I think some folks are trying to die instantly!!! Total heart attack city and simply nuts!
We finally got here at 2 am where we woke Papa Tony from a half sleep and asked to get let in. He was nice about it and wished he had given us a key. He did call earlier to find out where we were (we were at the fish and chips place waiting in line at the time). It just goes to show you that no matter how old you are you never stop being someone's kid. We watched new tech TV (about artificial arms) for a little while because I could not get to sleep - and eventually went to bed.