Monday, May 14, 2007
Millennium Lemonflan
Pirate Pete is officially eight years old. We had a party of his choosing yesterday. I went in with the boys, and they had a ball of a time. It’s a pretty well behaved bunch, no, make that very well behaved. So, despite young adrenalin rushing madly, and the prospect of running about shooting each other, they had fun. It was well organised, and there were teenage proctors earning their first dosh to supervise.
I had fun too. Not often you get a completely guilt free to run about madly shooting your frustrations away. Perhaps just a little tiny window into the minds of those at Virginia and Columbine. Mind you, in this scenario, the sprogs are armed too. I got shot as good as I shot, some of them where down right sneaky about it too.
For afters, we had originally planned to have a picnic out on the fields, and let them kick some balls around a bit. The weather did not quite permit that, so it was a quick replan to have lunch at the local hamburger joint of choice. Not that the kids minded in the least, a burger and chips is a perfectly fine birthday treat when you’re eight (and you’re an upper middle class sprog who’s parents generally don’t do that sort of thing, so it really is a treat (as an aside I did a quick tally up of the combined parental income of the kids munching down, and we’re into pretty obscene figures)).
To finish off the fast food fest though, out came the cake. Now LL generally isn’t in to cooking, she enjoys it, but its more of a chore than a pleasure for her. The one thing she insists on though, is doing proper birthday cakes. She claims it was she was deprived as a girl, her birthday was often missed being mid summer and all. So, she just doesn’t do cakes, she does creations. Done to order, we’ve had multiple dinosaurs, a pirate ship, a racing motorcycle, a rocket ship, you name it she’ll give it a go. Given the current Star Wars craze in our household, this year was perhaps inevitable, the Millennium Falcon. Done up in lemon sponge (she does a super historic lemon sponge, my LL), stuffed with whipped cream and strawberry jam, iced in grey with appropriate sweety weapons of mass destruction; it was a work of art. It was rather good to eat too. One whippit thin boy had three portions; he probably lives on organic lentils and wild salmon at home.
That took all of half an hour, and we still had a half hour to fill. Thankfully, the other household craze is a card game which shall remain nameless. Though I can’t quite bring myself to live up to the Jones and give out party bags, I do condescend to a lucky dip bag, this year filled with variations of said card game. Thankfully all the boys where into it, so once the prezzies got distributed games where played with some intensity and everyone was happy. All in all a fine birthday, and we had a very happy and contented Pirate Pete afterwards.
I had fun too. Not often you get a completely guilt free to run about madly shooting your frustrations away. Perhaps just a little tiny window into the minds of those at Virginia and Columbine. Mind you, in this scenario, the sprogs are armed too. I got shot as good as I shot, some of them where down right sneaky about it too.
For afters, we had originally planned to have a picnic out on the fields, and let them kick some balls around a bit. The weather did not quite permit that, so it was a quick replan to have lunch at the local hamburger joint of choice. Not that the kids minded in the least, a burger and chips is a perfectly fine birthday treat when you’re eight (and you’re an upper middle class sprog who’s parents generally don’t do that sort of thing, so it really is a treat (as an aside I did a quick tally up of the combined parental income of the kids munching down, and we’re into pretty obscene figures)).
To finish off the fast food fest though, out came the cake. Now LL generally isn’t in to cooking, she enjoys it, but its more of a chore than a pleasure for her. The one thing she insists on though, is doing proper birthday cakes. She claims it was she was deprived as a girl, her birthday was often missed being mid summer and all. So, she just doesn’t do cakes, she does creations. Done to order, we’ve had multiple dinosaurs, a pirate ship, a racing motorcycle, a rocket ship, you name it she’ll give it a go. Given the current Star Wars craze in our household, this year was perhaps inevitable, the Millennium Falcon. Done up in lemon sponge (she does a super historic lemon sponge, my LL), stuffed with whipped cream and strawberry jam, iced in grey with appropriate sweety weapons of mass destruction; it was a work of art. It was rather good to eat too. One whippit thin boy had three portions; he probably lives on organic lentils and wild salmon at home.
That took all of half an hour, and we still had a half hour to fill. Thankfully, the other household craze is a card game which shall remain nameless. Though I can’t quite bring myself to live up to the Jones and give out party bags, I do condescend to a lucky dip bag, this year filled with variations of said card game. Thankfully all the boys where into it, so once the prezzies got distributed games where played with some intensity and everyone was happy. All in all a fine birthday, and we had a very happy and contented Pirate Pete afterwards.
