Birthdays and Parties

I really am a wicked mother. Freddy is in the process of having his 10th birthday party and I haven't prepared at all - that is to say, I have just made a malteser cake, and after the guests arrived I cut up some fruit for the inevitable chocolate fountain. We bought this a few years ago in a moment of chocoholic fantasy madness, and it is unearthed consistently for every birthday party, much to my chagrin as it is the most difficult thing in the world to wash up. I have a horror of the boys' birthday parties ever since Gus's sixth birthday party in Stroud, when as soon as the boys discovered that there weren't sweets between every layer of the pass the parcel, refused to sit nicely in a circle and started vociferously wrestling and breaking stuff.

The kids parties when we lived in Altrincham (late 1990s) were much more thought out and ordered affairs, involving huge amounts of preparation if you didn't want to spend a fortune. Prepared pass the parcel(with a prize in every layer) and the usual games, hugely show-offy complicated cakes, and consciously not too unhealthy teas. I remember one party when I made a complicated treasure hunt where each child had to find the contents of their going home party bag, colour coded, as they were too young to read, which I had previously hidden all around the house. Party bags are an interesting issue as well: it seemed to get more and more competitive in Altrincham, other mothers spending a small fortune filling the bags with crazy gadgets and games. Not only could we not afford to compete, but I didn't approve, so had to be a bit creative. We were once at a cousin's party in Bristol where the lack of party bags caused major upset and tantrums (evidently my sister-in-law did not approve of party bags either).


I have to say that since we moved to France, birthday parties are a lot easier. French children are still happy just to charge around outside and then stoke up on an array of biscuits and sweets, and they are obedient. Today they came in and started eating before I was ready, and when I told them to go back outside and play, they did, immediately and without question.

At five o'clock I had to go and pick up Gus from football, and I heard the beginning of Weekend Women's Hour which, by coincidence was discussing how there is nothing as excruciating as children's birthday parties, and although my initial thought was 'How apt', I actually felt quite smug that this one seemed to be going well. When I got back the boys were all still quite happy, and apart from a minor incident of one of our chickens apparently terrorising a big boy, the whole thing seemed to be a success. All the credit really goes to Harriet, who organised them and bossed them around in much better French than mine.

Back to work

La belle mère has left this morning and Toby is off to Harrogate tomorrow for The France Show, so for me it is time to really get down to work and look after my vendors and buyers and get some new houses on line.

I'm very excited about work this month so I must get on with it. I'll blog more later.