Getting back into the usual routine!

I have spent a good part of today putting the house to rights after one of those family visit weekends. Our son and his little family came up from the south to stay with us and our daughter and family popped in and out the whole time.

The four year old granddaughter learned to cross the river on stepping stones and showed how brave she was by trying put an enormous slide on an inflatable in the local park. She was booked for five goes but I think one was enough to scare her just a little and she refused to climb up again, opting instead for some much more sensible bouncing!

Yesterday was her small cousin’s second birthday. The smaller one wanted to copy everything her bigger cousin did but we drew the line at climbing up the inflatable slide!

Not far up the road from us in an industrial park. Within the complex, one of the ground floor sections, which in Spain I would refer to simply as a “bajo” someone opened a sort of snack bar, selling coffee and Italian ice creams. Over the last year or so this has morphed into a restaurant, now called “La Rustica”. I ran past the other day and spotted a sign advertising “Traditional southern Italian Sunday lunch served from 12.00 to 5.00.

We have been planning to try the place out for a while and this seemed like a perfect way of getting all the family together for a birthday lunch with minimum effort.

So I checked on their website and phoned early on Saturday evening to make sure that they could accommodate ten or eleven of us plus a four-year-old and an about-to-be-two-year-old. No Sunday lunch being served at present! But we ascertained that they opened at 4.00pm and would be able to accommodate us at 5.00 and were quite happy for us to take a birthday cake and candles along. It would be really useful, they said, if we could let them know in advance what such a large group would like to eat. So Phil and I strolled round and picked up a menu.

Then followed the difficult task of pinning everyone down to make a choice, especially as two of our number were not actually present. But we succeeded and I phoned through the order.

Then about an hour before we were due to go I phoned again as one of the party had decided to change her order! Added to that the fact that we had to organise ferrying people from various parts of Greater Manchester to our house prior to strolling round the corner to the restaurant, it was all growing complicated. But eventually we made it.

The “bajo” had been transformed to look as close as you were going to get to a rustic restaurant in an industrial setting. Lots of check tablecloths, bits of old tree decorated with fairy-lights, wine bottles and candles here and there and Dean Martin singing Italian songs in the background. The only difficulty was that of anyone went to the loo they were in danger of going through the wrong door, taking a wrong turning and finding themselves in the middle of a warehouse. A reminder that we were, in fact on, an industrial estate.

The four-year-old and the now just-two-year-old set about charming everyone, the smaller one carefully copying everything the older one got up to. We tried to make sure they were not interfering with any possible romantic assignations at tables for two. But really, do you organise romantic assignations at 5.00 in the afternoon?

The food was good. The conversation was as good as you can manage when there are eleven of you sitting at a long, narrow table. Nobody moaned. Nobody lost their temper. Nobody felt they had ordered the wrong dish. We did not order dessert because we had the birthday cake. The waitress, the ONLY waitress, owner/manager of the set-up, a lady who spoke English with an Oldham accent but also spoke Italian and appeared to be of Italian heritage - they had just come back from visiting family there, hence the confusing notices outside - joined in the spirit of the occasion and brought out the cake with its candles alight.

We sang happy birthday, the just-two-year-old managed to blow out the candles ... with a little help from those sitting next to her. We paid the bill and off we went. Another successful family event! The sun even shone for us.

And today the sun seems to have departed again, the southern branch of the family has departed, the northern branch of the family has either returned to school and nursery or is preparing to do so tomorrow.

Slowly, normal service is being resumed!