20th February

Wednesday 20^th february

Katy and Jeff had a most amazing birthday party for their children on Sunday.  They weren’t going to go to as much trouble with the birthday cakes now they have four to make in one go but… Jeff started off making a Yoda-head cake (Gavin said it was a very good self-portrait…) and that set the standard for another extravaganza of wonderment in the cake department.

Leo turned seven and just adored his Yoda/father cake

Eva turned five.  Her cake was a large bowl of aquamarine jelly with floating mermaids and coral, just beautiful.  It was a very hot day and the jelly soon melted but…never mind!  Many small girls swarmed around it, happily drinking the mermaid-infested melted jelly.

Zoe, just turned three, had a jumble of colourful blocks, as a tribute to her own love of blocks, puzzles, anything which involves spatial awareness.  She had a tiny bit of trouble with her candles – her technique seemed to involve sniffing rather than blowing but never mind, she had many helpers.

Rose will be one on Feb 29^th or thereabouts.  She doesn’t have any strong opinions yet on what her cake should be – her main hobbies at the moment seem to be along the lines of DestructorBaby, dismantling anything in her path, so Katy and Jeff pleased themselves and made her a very pretty pink cake topped, appropriately, with pink roses.

The cakes were displayed on the table for each of the sixty guests to admire.. Yes SIXTY!!!  Thirty adults, thirty children… Four generations of family, many friends.  It was a glorious day, hot and sunny, thank God, so everyone could spread themselves under shady trees and umbrellas.  It would NOT have been quite so glorious with so many inside I can assure you… As people came in, they gasped at the Wonderment of the Cakes, as well they might.  I could see some of the mothers in particular looking a bit dismayed.  One of them whispered, Best Parents Ever!  in tragic tones.  Fortunately Katy heard and said, “Bec, what you are seeing on the table is not a result of Best Parents Ever.  You are seeing three days of total child neglect!”

One of the other fathers heard this and laughed very happily.  He said he had imagined a very cheerful Thomas Family, sitting at an oval table together, lovingly sharing the cake decorating task, and maybe singing in harmony as they did it.  But no!  Normally Katy and Jeff are very good about letting the children share with cooking, decorating, everything, really, but this time Katy said they both stood in the kitchen snarling, “Don’t touch!”  “Get away!”  “Go and watch the TV!”

There was a treasure hunt for the small girls.  Julian (uncle) and Pete (friend) rushed around in the hot sun hiding chocolates, and the swarm of girls followed, finding them and eating them very quickly before they melted away.

The older children had a more thrilling activity – a long water slide down the hill in the paddock just outside the garden.  Much shrieking, much fun.  The older boys – mainly Hamish and Angus – whizzed down at very high speed and propelled themselves far beyond the plastic into a large clump of bracken and blackberry roots.  It looked supremely painful and uncomfortable  but they did it over and again, with great gusto and élan, so maybe the endorphins masked the pain.

This was possibly Best Birthday Party Ever but we will see what Katy and Jeff manage to surprise us with next year…

Sydney (before Vietnam)

It was so nice to be able to spend a few days with the Sydney Harmsens, who were, as usual, extremely hospitable, and fun to be with.  I spent a lot of time with Kate, on a dog website.  She is in Grade 7 now, and has been saving her money for years, and working on her parents for an equal amount of time, so that she could get her very own little dog.  Her friend next door, Acacia, has two, or maybe three, but this is NOT the same as having her own.  The website (Monika’s Dog Rescue) was amazing; just like the RSVP dating site.  You could put in your specifications - age, size, shedding-ness - and up would pop a long list of potential suitors, I mean dogs, all cutely smiling into the camera, and named Woody, Woolly, Loveheart and - this is true - Love Bear Hug-a-Lot.  Kate said sternly that she had MUCH nicer names chosen.  Chris had to go to work in Melbourne, so Karen and I had excursions with the children.  We went to Taronga Park Zoo to see the new baby elephant.  Kate and Acacia were extremely lively on the cablecar, and Max, who is a year and a half younger, sat patiently until we were about to alight.  “You might want to stop screaming now,” he said, calmly.  Totally cool.  I was very impressed with his negotiating ability in the canteen.  He went off to buy a package meal of chips, chicken nuggets, the works, and very firmly said he didn’t want the coke so could they please deduct the correct amount.  We also drove to North Head to look at whales on the horizon; it was a very nice interlude before setting off for South East Asia.