Paaartaaay

Negotiating birthday parties can be a tricky business, the delicate balance between what the birthday girls aspires to and what the crumbling parents can a) cope with b) afford. The months of agonising over the guest list, whose in, whose out and how many people we can afford to feed, then the activity to be undertaken, bowling? pictures? skating? stuffing bears? it all begins to sound like a greek odyssey. So at last the day dawned grey and the battle machine creaked into action.

There was swimming, there was mass getting dressed and retrieving clothing and towels, there was pizza, cake and balloons, and finally the happy guests were dropped off at home. Phew.

Here we spy pater familias and aunty Soup looking cheery as the end is nigh, they have a caffeine based beverage to hand and no one is dead...yet.

It actually all went 'swimmingly', the guests behaved impeccably, everyone had a good time and ate heartily and the birthday girl thought it all went well. No doubt we shall look back fondly on these days, when we are coping with older, lager fuelled nightmares which involve stitches and trips to pick people up from the cells.

Now just a month or two to go before the next celebrations break out......paragliding or fire walking as a birthday activity??