Spring garden flowers still life

I snapped this shot at the end of a very busy day when I realised that I didn't have a blip. I'm quite pleased with this wee arrangement of flowers from our back garden. Most of this evening they were split across two vases. The bluebells were on the kitchen table, and the rest in the guest bathroom.

Earlier in the evening the flat was buzzing with conversation at a wee party that we threw in honour of Brian, our Canadian academic visitor. Our other guests were my work colleagues Bruce and his wife Elly, Peter, Debbie and her husband Colin, PhD student Drew and his wife Kimberley, and Diane and her fiancé John.

The plan had been to gather in the garden for drinks and our dinner, but it started to rain at the exact time that we had invited our guests to arrive. Instead we served the Pimms in the sitting room, then split into two parties for dinner. Eight sat at the kitchen, with 'private dining' for the other four in the hall.

All the food was served cold on the basis that we had hoped to eat outside. For the main course we worked our way through: a broccoli and sundried tomato pasta salad; a carrot, kale, lentil and date salad; gado gado; cold meat; cheeses; vegetable pakoras; and mini pork pies. For pudding I made a rhubarb ginger fool, and a summer pudding.

I'm so glad that everyone enjoyed the evening because (a) it took the pair of us nearly all day to prepare for the party (including a trip to the supermarkets to buy all the ingredients to cook the dishes listed above) and (b) some of our guests travelled long distances to be with us: Airdrie, Bathgate, Falkirk, and Toronto.

Exercise today: none recorded on my watch because I wasn't wearing it, but I must have racked up over 10,000 steps having been on my feet nearly all day.