Readers' favourite photographs, songs and recipes
*Snapshot*:* My 75th birthday celebration*
I was approaching my 75th birthday in February 2009, a landmark my family thought should be celebrated in some way. I have two sons, two daughters-in-law and one grandson. I was at first reluctant but eventually decided to hold an open house at my home.
The girls worked hard to prepare the house, rearranging furniture and finding extra chairs. My son sent out very elegant invitations showing this picture of me aged five (I still had the same haircut as you can see from the now-and-then photographs: a short bob with a fringe). We sent invitations to friends new and old; people I had worked with and all the neighbours living in our small cul-de-sac. We had all lived there for 30 years and seen our children grow up and leave home.
A lovely buffet was ordered and my sons organised plenty of wine and beer. In addition, four dozen yellow roses were delivered and distributed throughout the house.
Everything looked lovely but I was nervous and not sure how well it would all go. I needn't have worried. Everyone arrived and everyone ate, drank and chatted. There was a lovely, warm atmosphere.
As the party was winding down, a cake was produced with a representative number of candles. All my guests spontaneously joined hands and sang Auld Lang Syne. It was a very moving moment.
Since this event – nearly five years ago now – three of my best friends have died so I was very glad that I had not postponed the celebration. Perhaps the lesson is not to put off anything you want to do. Do it now.
Christina Thomson
*Playlist*:* On a roll with Mum and Dad*
* *
*Country Dreamer by Paul McCartney*
"I'd like to climb up a hill with you / Stand on top and admire the view / I'd like to roll down a hill with you ..."
Dad played this song in the car all the way to the secluded beach of warm round smoky blue pebbles at the bottom of a valley of steep cliffs and rolling hills with streams.
On the descent to the beach there was a bridge under which we played Three Billy Goats Gruff. Paul McCartney supplied the soundtrack to a world a child's dreams are made of. Had a film been made of those walks we'd have been the only characters in the scene. It felt as if a pocket of Cornwall was reserved just for us.
And so we rolled down those slopes – almost into the streams below –Mum's yelps of fear punctuating our falls as we narrowly missed slipping off the edge into the stream below. Dad, post roll, would sit up at the bottom covered in grass, laughing and flashing his charming smile, ready to catch us.
I can still see Dad's rolled-up blue shirt sleeves and remember how he carried my sister and me, one in the crook of each arm, on the climb back up to the car, my older siblings trailing happily behind with Mum in her Jackie Onassis sunglasses and knotted headscarf.
Like the strips of sea I glimpsed through holes in the hedgerows, this song in the context of 1980s rural Cornwall reminds me of those fleeting moments when I knew what it was like to be a part of a happy, carefree family on holiday, far from the toil of our term-time existence.
In a childhood riddled with confusion, Paul McCartney gave my dad a holiday script that seduced us all.
Thirty years on, as I listen to this song I can still feel the hope it imbued, the simple joy that it brought us, the title so very apt.
N
*We love to eat*:* Aunt Charrington's pudding*
*Ingredients*
50g plain flour
25g granulated sugar
450ml milk
½ tsp vanilla essence
1 egg
Mix the flour to a thin paste with a few spoonfuls of milk. Bring the rest of the milk to the boil before pouring on to the paste, stirring vigorously. Return to the heat and simmer for two minutes. Beat the egg and add, together with the sugar and vanilla and pour into a buttered pie dish. Place the dish in a baking tin half-filled with water and bake for 50 minutes at 180C, by which time the pudding should be set and the top slightly browned. Serve cold with a spoonful of jam per person.
Auntie's pudding – or, to give it its full name, Aunt Charrington's pudding – is an old favourite. The identity of the eponymous lady is unknown, although family legend has it that disagreement on the subject was the cause of a major falling out between one of my aunts and her sister-in-law.
I assume that the recipe has a war-time origin as the ingredients listed in my mother's copy included dried egg rather than a fresh one, but it was a frequent dessert in her household (always served with her homemade raspberry jam – no other flavour would do) until she died in 1990. By then, I'd long since left home and had children of my own, and this had become part of my repertoire. My family was never really as enthusiastic about it as I was, although we always made it when my father came to visit ("You can't tell Grandpa he's taking too much jam") and I remember a horrified "Tell him you don't stir the jam in," the first time I served it to my now husband (who is a milk pudding addict and says I don't make it often enough).
It gradually fell out of favour as the children's tastes became more grown-up, but I still make it when I need a bit of nostalgic comfort. I'm hoping that there might be grandchildren to introduce it to in the not-too-distant future.
Lindsay Haddon
*We'd love to hear your stories
*
We will pay £25 for every Letter to, Playlist, Snapshot or We love to eat we publish. Write to Family Life, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU or email family@theguardian.com. Please include your address and phone number Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 hours ago.
*Snapshot*:* My 75th birthday celebration*
I was approaching my 75th birthday in February 2009, a landmark my family thought should be celebrated in some way. I have two sons, two daughters-in-law and one grandson. I was at first reluctant but eventually decided to hold an open house at my home.
The girls worked hard to prepare the house, rearranging furniture and finding extra chairs. My son sent out very elegant invitations showing this picture of me aged five (I still had the same haircut as you can see from the now-and-then photographs: a short bob with a fringe). We sent invitations to friends new and old; people I had worked with and all the neighbours living in our small cul-de-sac. We had all lived there for 30 years and seen our children grow up and leave home.
A lovely buffet was ordered and my sons organised plenty of wine and beer. In addition, four dozen yellow roses were delivered and distributed throughout the house.
Everything looked lovely but I was nervous and not sure how well it would all go. I needn't have worried. Everyone arrived and everyone ate, drank and chatted. There was a lovely, warm atmosphere.
As the party was winding down, a cake was produced with a representative number of candles. All my guests spontaneously joined hands and sang Auld Lang Syne. It was a very moving moment.
Since this event – nearly five years ago now – three of my best friends have died so I was very glad that I had not postponed the celebration. Perhaps the lesson is not to put off anything you want to do. Do it now.
Christina Thomson
*Playlist*:* On a roll with Mum and Dad*
* *
*Country Dreamer by Paul McCartney*
"I'd like to climb up a hill with you / Stand on top and admire the view / I'd like to roll down a hill with you ..."
Dad played this song in the car all the way to the secluded beach of warm round smoky blue pebbles at the bottom of a valley of steep cliffs and rolling hills with streams.
On the descent to the beach there was a bridge under which we played Three Billy Goats Gruff. Paul McCartney supplied the soundtrack to a world a child's dreams are made of. Had a film been made of those walks we'd have been the only characters in the scene. It felt as if a pocket of Cornwall was reserved just for us.
And so we rolled down those slopes – almost into the streams below –Mum's yelps of fear punctuating our falls as we narrowly missed slipping off the edge into the stream below. Dad, post roll, would sit up at the bottom covered in grass, laughing and flashing his charming smile, ready to catch us.
I can still see Dad's rolled-up blue shirt sleeves and remember how he carried my sister and me, one in the crook of each arm, on the climb back up to the car, my older siblings trailing happily behind with Mum in her Jackie Onassis sunglasses and knotted headscarf.
Like the strips of sea I glimpsed through holes in the hedgerows, this song in the context of 1980s rural Cornwall reminds me of those fleeting moments when I knew what it was like to be a part of a happy, carefree family on holiday, far from the toil of our term-time existence.
In a childhood riddled with confusion, Paul McCartney gave my dad a holiday script that seduced us all.
Thirty years on, as I listen to this song I can still feel the hope it imbued, the simple joy that it brought us, the title so very apt.
N
*We love to eat*:* Aunt Charrington's pudding*
*Ingredients*
50g plain flour
25g granulated sugar
450ml milk
½ tsp vanilla essence
1 egg
Mix the flour to a thin paste with a few spoonfuls of milk. Bring the rest of the milk to the boil before pouring on to the paste, stirring vigorously. Return to the heat and simmer for two minutes. Beat the egg and add, together with the sugar and vanilla and pour into a buttered pie dish. Place the dish in a baking tin half-filled with water and bake for 50 minutes at 180C, by which time the pudding should be set and the top slightly browned. Serve cold with a spoonful of jam per person.
Auntie's pudding – or, to give it its full name, Aunt Charrington's pudding – is an old favourite. The identity of the eponymous lady is unknown, although family legend has it that disagreement on the subject was the cause of a major falling out between one of my aunts and her sister-in-law.
I assume that the recipe has a war-time origin as the ingredients listed in my mother's copy included dried egg rather than a fresh one, but it was a frequent dessert in her household (always served with her homemade raspberry jam – no other flavour would do) until she died in 1990. By then, I'd long since left home and had children of my own, and this had become part of my repertoire. My family was never really as enthusiastic about it as I was, although we always made it when my father came to visit ("You can't tell Grandpa he's taking too much jam") and I remember a horrified "Tell him you don't stir the jam in," the first time I served it to my now husband (who is a milk pudding addict and says I don't make it often enough).
It gradually fell out of favour as the children's tastes became more grown-up, but I still make it when I need a bit of nostalgic comfort. I'm hoping that there might be grandchildren to introduce it to in the not-too-distant future.
Lindsay Haddon
*We'd love to hear your stories
*
We will pay £25 for every Letter to, Playlist, Snapshot or We love to eat we publish. Write to Family Life, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU or email family@theguardian.com. Please include your address and phone number Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 hours ago.