The Joyce Jenkyn 60th Birthday Party, 3-5 November 2006

Relatives and friends from around the world, USA and UK actually, came to join Joyce and celebrate her 60^th birthday. Actually Joyce’s birthday is the 25^th December which is not a great time to celebrate as other events also take place on this day. So it was decided to bring the event forward, avoiding Thanksgiving, and making a three day party of it.
The Holiday Inn at ||Indian Rocks was chosen as the party base with those travelling from greater distances arriving over a couple of days and to meet for the opening event at the pub in the hotel followed by dinner at the famous ‘Crabby Bills’. We had about 25 people attending this opening event. The seafood was excellent and so was the company.
Saturday morning brought about a late breakfast in the hotel and we all made our own way to Adrian and Joyce’s Condo about two miles away. Jennifer and I walked with Wanda Pointek via the beach both before and after the lunchtime session which finished around 3.30 pm. The evening event was in the ‘Brewmaster’ restaurant in the Hotel where about 20 participants joined in. A number of Joyce and Adrian’s friends at the Yacht club could not attend this night due to this event clashing with a Yacht Club event. The hardy ones carried on in Adrian and Joyce Hotel room. The evening was made extra pleasurable as they had arranged for a caricaturist to create pictures of the attendees; these will be published on the Jenkyn.com website in the near future. Going to bed was a little later tonight than planned.
Sunday saw us all off to a good start and we hit the trolley bus down to ‘The Pub’ for a brunch. This little restaurant right alongside the inland waterway was a great place to start the day and a number of Bloody Mary’s and pills were seen to be in strong evidence.
Following breakfast we went back to the trolley and down to Johns Pass, which is a waterside shopping and restaurant area. Upon arrival we immediately set about the beer and a few more Bloody Mary’s to kick start the shopping spree. We all departed our own way to meet later but it was not long before the troops turned up at the soon to be famous ‘Bamboo’ Pub where the resident Pizza delivery man ‘Mike Calzone’ was entertaining the audience with some great music and songs of all types. A very pleasant 45 minutes was spent listening to this chap.
However, the Commander in Chief, Joyce got us up and running back to the Trolley for the drive down to Pass-a-Grille, interesting name for a place, where we would view the sunset from the terrace of the Hurricane Restaurant and bar. To see the demise of the sun we all took on board the drink of the bar called a ‘Hurricane’ which contains most liquor’s together with sulphuric acid and a few other chemicals. At the appointed time 1753 hrs when the sun should be dipping below the horizon and casting a beautiful light over the sea, all we got was black clouds. Uhmm something went wrong with the arrangements here however the moon popped up the other side and we looked at that instead. We then had a short but excellent and illegal firework display before we hit the trolley back to a restaurant for the final dinner.
A number of people had unfortunately returned to distant parts and the numbers were dwindling down to the hard core. The dinner was very nice and ‘Curtis’ our waiter worked quite hard to satisfy the demands of the remaining few.
A few short speeches were made in the blur of alcohol before we all headed, very tired, back to the hotel.
It was a lovely few days, it was great to meet a number of people who lived in Tokyo during our time at the start of the ‘Tokyo British Club’ and also meet Joyce’s family members.
Most of the people attending the event took photos galore, and many will soon to be on the Jenkyn website whilst we will do our usual Blogs with photos as well.
A good time was had by all and now we all need a day to recuperate.