Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Have I got you humming that funky song now? (Kay, I just know you won't be able to get it out of your head now for a while, he he)
It fits the topic of this post so well, because we have had a great week of celebrating my Mum's 70th birthday. Yes, nearly a whole week! Us mere mortals usually have a party lasting a few hours at best, but my Mum is one very special lady and so she had a fully deserved week of it.
For the past years, we usually had her birthday party at the allotment, as you can see here. But for her 70th, my sister and I insisted on something a bit classier, with less work for her to do; something where she would be able to go nicely dressed up, and then just relax and enjoy her party. Two years ago, my Dad had his 70th birthday "do" in a restaurant (you can read about that here if you like), but we wanted something else this time, a place where we'd be able to enjoy the outdoors as well, weather permitting.

After much deliberation and comparing many different offers from various places, we settled on the café in the palace grounds. Have a look at the venue (fittingly called Parkcafé), isn't it beautiful?

Entrance to the Yellow Salon, which we had to ourselves:

 

 

 The beautiful fresco on the ceiling: 

Because the weather turned out to be the nicest it would be all week (how lucky we were!), champagne was served on the lawn in front of the building. Later, we went inside for two speeches - one by my Mum and one by her good friend, my Godmother - and our most delicious meal. Have you eaten yet? If not, how about some mouth-watering pictures:

Sorry - I forgot to take a picture of the first course, which was a huge mound of all kinds of summery goodness in the shape of a leafy salad, surrounded by shrimps. The desserts were Panna Cotta, Crème Brûlée, Mousse au Chocolat and the fruitiest of fruity sorbets I have ever tasted: the raspberry one was pure raspberry, the minty one pure spearmint, and so on. I went to the dessert table twice, although I had been full up already after the first and main course!

But let me get back to what happened during the days leading up to the big event. Or, better still: let me end this post here, and tell you more about it in my next post. Maybe I'll manage to talk my Mum into writing a guest post, there is plenty to tell!