Liam's 5th birthday

Liam turned 5 in June, and here are the pictures.

The first couple are of the prezzie-unwrapping ceremony on the morning itself. He got some dinosaurs, some dragons, some books... Unfortunately, the poor little fella was ill on the day itself, so he couldn't really enjoy them at the time, but he has more than made up for lost time since!

We got round to having the actual birthday party a few days later, due to a variety of complex scheduling permutations - not only from us, but from potential guests and their Mums and Dads (ee, it were a lot simpler in my youth) compounded, as ever, by the thrillingly uncertain North East weather! Anyway, it took place on the 24th. (Interesting: Liam isn't particularly aware of what day of the week it is, let alone the date, and so even special ones pertaining to him like the date of his birth carry little weight - when do kids start to understand this? - and so we got away with the slight delay.)

We held the party at the splendid Broom House Farm just outside the village of Witton Gilbert, which itself is just outside Durham. It is one of those farms that has successfully re-organised itself as a kids' daytrip adventure, with a great little coffee house, and - for the monkeys' delight - a sandpit; a 'maze' made out of hay bales (pictured) that tends to get used as an assault course, as the hay bales only come up to the kids' waist, thus rendering the 'maze' aspect less than taxing; a wooden castle high(ish - for 5 year olds, anyway) on a mound of earth, and - genius investment - a really very good indeed adventure trail with zip wires and rope bridges and slides set in the gorgeous woods at the bottom of their fields. It's excellent. We love this picture of Liam (note his birthday dinosaur T-shirt) with Nathalie, and Sasha.

Here are some more pictures of the fun and games Liam and his friends - Nathalie, Xavier, Alex, Kienan, Sasha, Matthew, Zosia, Charlie, Katy, Finn and James - had on the Adventure Trail, with parents in tow!
Valeria had arranged everything, including a fantastic Stegosaurus pinata, which proved to be sturdy enough to withstand the best efforts of Liam and his fellow extras from "Lord of the Flies 2"! We love the excitement on the kids' faces in these shots, and the look of, er, shall we say 'determination' [the polite word] on Liam's face as he sets about it. ['Savagery' might be another!]

When they had all run themselves ragged, we herded them back into the coffee house, for some yum organic sausage sandwiches, home-made bramble jam sandwiches, crisps - and the token, perennially overlooked sticks of vegetable! It was a good spread.

Then came the highlight: worked on by Mum and her best friend Ann for the best part of a week, involving the studious sculpting of sponge, the meticulous mixing of icing sugar and colourings, and the attentive application of various body parts, to make - brace yourselves for the shock - a dinosaur cake! That is all made by Valeria's fair hand. Now, come on, admit you're impressed! Here's a great picture of Liam blowing out the candles.

The whole thing proved a triumph, and Liam had a brilliant time.

The last birthday moment came when Daddy returned from a trip back to The Netherlands (to give a paper at a seminar at the University of Tilburg) with a present of a bag of ace-looking marbles from good Rotterdam friends Ed, Puk, Morris and Nina: here is Liam rolling them down the bath (which makes a hell of a racket).