Which is much, much older than five. 20% older than five in fact and also, temporarily, only three years younger than her sister. It's no wonder she's been counting down the days for the last three months.
There's a well-established routine around this stuff now. We restrict attendance at the family party to cousins, grandparents and a couple of close friends. On my side of the family this means four. Al's Catholic clan add a further 20 odd, so the kitchen creaks at the seams. Al does loads of food, people bring more food, beer and wine are distributed and the whole affair kicks on into the evening. If we'd set a pack of wild dingoes on Al's Moroccan lamb, I suspect it would have lasted longer.
Children charge around the place, hoofing great teenagers turn my tiny lawn into a mudbath and Hatty revels in the whole centre of attention thing. In a departure from normal practice, half the attendees sat down to despair at England's failure to win some bit of football tat, which bothered me less than the hoofing great teenagers, since we'd scored a much more interesting victory earlier in the day, albeit in the 'For Dummies' variant of the sport. As Hatty's birthday was actually today, we did it again on a smaller scale. Hatty got to choose her birthday tea, hence the KFC littering the last few photos. Good choice.
Some idiot bought her a camera that automatically puts a milkmaid's hat on pictures of Daddy. I despair. Mostly because I think it was me.
There's a well-established routine around this stuff now. We restrict attendance at the family party to cousins, grandparents and a couple of close friends. On my side of the family this means four. Al's Catholic clan add a further 20 odd, so the kitchen creaks at the seams. Al does loads of food, people bring more food, beer and wine are distributed and the whole affair kicks on into the evening. If we'd set a pack of wild dingoes on Al's Moroccan lamb, I suspect it would have lasted longer.
Children charge around the place, hoofing great teenagers turn my tiny lawn into a mudbath and Hatty revels in the whole centre of attention thing. In a departure from normal practice, half the attendees sat down to despair at England's failure to win some bit of football tat, which bothered me less than the hoofing great teenagers, since we'd scored a much more interesting victory earlier in the day, albeit in the 'For Dummies' variant of the sport. As Hatty's birthday was actually today, we did it again on a smaller scale. Hatty got to choose her birthday tea, hence the KFC littering the last few photos. Good choice.
Some idiot bought her a camera that automatically puts a milkmaid's hat on pictures of Daddy. I despair. Mostly because I think it was me.
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