Had a Coronavirus Lockdown 60th birthday party yesterday and bizarrely it was all the better for it.
Rather than the big Birthday Bash I was planning I could only invite just a few family and friend households.
To give our small gathering a bit more of a party atmosphere, Mrs Jones booked the ‘live on the drive’ singer we’d seen performing just up the road from us a couple of weeks ago.
The weather toyed with us all day but just as our singer’s late afternoon set started the wind dropped and the squally showers stopped.
A few songs later, just as he was belting out the 10th ‘I know’ of the 25 in Ain’t No Sunshine the sun pierced through the dark grey clouds to prove him wrong.
By this time virtually all of our neighbours we’re bringing out their garden chairs and gazebos, to join the impromptu party.
The power that music has to lift the spirits was wonderful to behold. We even got the odd ‘toot’ from passing motorists giving my English village a bit of a Latin flavour just for an hour or two.
Our neighbours – some of whom we’d only met for the first time through ‘Clap for Carers’ – really helped to create the party atmosphere singing and swaying to our performer’s set of popular crowed-pleasers.
Highlights of the afternoon for me included seeing my kids get up and dance on the drive, having Happy Birthday sang to me by the whole street and then dancing myself with Mrs Jones to Andy Williams’s ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’.
In true old codger style I managed to pull a muscle in my shoulder while waving my arms to the the encore song the Neil Diamond classic ‘Sweet Caroline’. Surely the perfect 60th Birthday Party injury, almost a rite of passage.