Happy Birthday 17 today

(You will notice by the date of this post that I am rather late with it. I just don't know what is going on with my blogging these days. I can't muster up the enthusiasm to write much anymore. It might be because I twitter all the time...)

Today (Monday) is my baby daughter's 17th birthday!!!

Sunday we went out with the family to Frankie and Benny's for lunch. We had never been there before so were looking forward to it.
I got us a taxi up there although it isn't that far and we could have walked but I didn't want to arrive all sweaty from the heat.We met with my sisters and the rest of the family at about 2.30.
As I said I had never been up there before so wasn't aware it was 50s themed. There was 50s music playing and 50s memorabilia all around the walls.
They had set us a table for 10 with Balloons in the middle.

As soon as we were seated, the manager brought over 2 kiddies packs for Joe and Abbie. Inside there was pictures to colour and puzzles to do and pop out origami animals to make. This kept them busy while they were waiting.

I had planned that we would share the family platter for starter (We being Me, Bill, Bret and Emma) and then share the Half and half pizza for mains.

When the platter arrived we didn't know where to start. There was 4 chicken wings, 4 chicken strips, 4 pieces of Garlic bread, 4 bread sticks, 4 Onion rings, Celery & Lettuce. There were also 4 dips which were (We think) garlic mayo, sweet & sour, Barbecue and sour cream.

The restaurant wasn't very busy but there seemed to be a lack of staff and 1 poor girl was left to run around after all the customers. This meant the service suddenly got really slow. This meant lots of waiting around for everyone to get their food and then for plates to be cleared away.

Our Half and half Pizza was really huge but it wasn't cut very well so there were an uneven amount of slices and some were tiny and some were massive. Between 4 of us it didn't last long and we were waiting around for ages for the others to have their mains and then even longer for the little ones to have their Ice cream.
We were in the restaurant for over 4 hours and it was getting on for 5pm by the time our taxi arrived to take us home again.

The family came back to ours for cakes and Ice cream. Bret got the Guitar hero on in his room so the kids (And Debz) were playing that for a while as we sat in the front room and Ange took control of the TV remote.

Everyone left about 8pm and we settled down for Sunday night TV!

So today was a bit of an anti climax for poor Birthday girl Bill. She woke up feeling a bit ill. The whole day was quite flat for her. She couldn't summon up any enthusiasm and felt very down. In the afternoon she spent a couple of hours with her head hanging over the toilet and so didn't get to enjoy her special birthday tea.

Things got worse in the evening and we were just bickering and arguing all evening. In the end I went to bed and left her watching TV.

I still want to make up for it some time as I have had bad miserable birthdays and I know how it feels!