Karen’s 40th birthday party

Karen celebrated her 40th birthday on August 11th. Normally we would have had a big party for her at club but these are not normal times so we had to settle for a party in our garden with a limited number of guests.  Despite this Karen had a fabulous time with lots of food and drink and entertainment from our dear friends Lauren Jones and Dave.

Karen would like to thank everyone who attended, and for the many cards and presents she received.  Here are some of the photo’s taken on the night, plus the earliest photo I have of Karen, it was taken when we very first visited her when she was about 7 months old – the lady holding her is the short term foster mother who had been caring for her since she was 6 weeks old.  Karen came to live with Julie and myself permanently on Wednesday 21st April 1982 and the adoption was finalised on 1st December of the same year.

In my speech I told everyone that Karen had been born at 03.55 a.m. on Tuesday 11th August 1981 and that she weighed 6lb’s – her birth parents, who were both born in Israel, already had three daughters and felt unable to provide the love and care that their baby girl deserved. I went on to mention that Karen had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was just 17 years old and since then has had to have two insulin injections every day and that means she had 16,790 injections over the past 23 years.

Tanglewood has paid a major part of her upbringing because she has been attending the club ever since she came to live with us – that would be over 1,700 club nights and countless club holidays.  On the party night I had hired a big marquee and lots of balloons and on display were hundreds of photo’s of Karen from when she was a little toddler, up to the present day.  It was a great night and we were fortunate that, with the lifting of restrictions concerning Covid-19, we were able to invite a lot of her family and friends..