Cymbals, drums and off key singing

Remind me not to choose the Chaophraya Thai Restaurant as a treat for my birthday. The food was excellent but there were 6 people dining there last night who must have had birthdays that day. At the end of each of their meals the waiters, kitchen staff and receptionists all paraded to their table with a cake plus lit candle. The staff had various instruments, drums, big cymbals,finger cymbals and bells which they banged loudly as they walked and proceeded to sing an off key Thai version of Happy Birthday to you. They sang the verse twice, banged and played the instruments very loudly for about a minute, chanted I presume a birthday greeting in Thai and then sang Happy Birthday once again. The first time it was nice, the second time also nice but by the end of our meal we had sat through at least 6 of these chants so it had worn a little thin. Thank goodness although it was my brother's birthday dinner no one had alerted the staff to that fact or I very much doubt he would have been amused! He is 70 now and quite a serious person who hates fuss of any kind.

The restaurant was very charming but a nightmare for me and my bad back. The first set of steps had a hand rail, the next did not which was a bit tricky. First impressions were oh no they are practically sitting on the floor. They had these strange lounging type seats where the back was so slanted it reminded me of an aircraft seat in recline. We found out that we were seated in more conventional seats. Huge sigh of relief for me until I found out that it was up a huge flight of wooden stairs. I don't think the restaurant would figure very highly on a list of disabled friendly places to eat guide. The food was excellent once I had navigated my way around the menu (guess who forgot her reading specs?) in the dim lighting. The plates were strage shapes, well maybe not to the Thai, either square with upward curls on 2 sides or long rectangular plates with a slight bevel. My sister in law and her sister chose to have fried ice cream as their desert. I looked strange but they said it tasted good, Apparently it's ice cream rolled in some kind of coconut and deep fried. It looked rather like a doughnut casing.

Not much crochet done last night and I am going to have to unravel the front as you can see from the strange shaping. I am sure I have mis-read the pattern so I will have another try with the other front when I am less tired than I was last night and hopefully will come up with a better shape. The pattern I chose does not give hints as to how many pattern repeats that I should finish up with at different stages. I prefer patterns that say now you should have x number of pattern repeats. It's re-assurance that you are right before carrying on and making more mistakes. I am certain I did the back exactly to the pattern but it looks very narrow to me and I am usually a looser rather than a tighter crocheter. Maybe it is just meant to be worn snugly. My niece is after all only a size 8/10 so maybe it just looks small compared with my 16/18 garments.

Off to do some housework. I need to de dog hair the front room as I didn't hoover it yesterday and I have a huge pile of ironing with my name on it. I try my best not to wear clothes that need ironing as it is the one thing guaranteed to set my back off. I have tried sitting down to iron but then I am up and down off the stool so many times that it is just as bad as standing. I think I will leave the ironing until this evening when I can iron a couple of things in front of the TV and then alternate with a sit down and a bit of crochet.

Brr it's freezing I am going to have to put the central heating on. Normally the house stays warm from the couple of hours it comes on in the morning but today it had just gone really cold. Apparently it was -5 last night. I slept in my dressing gown as I didn't have my fleecy pj's on!