Liam's 6th birthday

Technically, he turned 6 on June 15th, but we combined his party with that of his school friend, Matthew Harrison, for Saturday.

It was a blazing hot day (you need to set that description within the parameters of what is meteorologically possible in the North East of England - in other words, it was 22 degrees outside), and it was a great party.

There was a jungle theme at both boys' request (hence the masks and cake) and several girls who turned up in costume (respect due to Natalie's Mum for her two).

The kids first coloured in their animal masks (Liam is the tiger)...

... then they played lots of games upstairs (the pictures show Liam's team having a meditative pause shortly before the Find-the-Chopped-Up-Christmas-Card-Jigsaw-Challenge, Liam dropping his toy frog in the box fractionally before Matthew Dixon in the Toy-Frog-Relay, and Liam doing the Lions' Roar)...

Then they retired downstairs for masses of food, and wrecked a pinata to close.

Finally, here is his cake, another masterpiece from Valeria...

... and film of Liam blowing out his candles - "in one!", as he sought to impress upon all those in his presence. Be warned, the angle of the camerman shifts (idiotically) at the end! Doh.

And, right at the end, a very rare picture of all of us together...

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).

Liam's 4th birthday party

Liam held a party for his 4th birthday on 30th June, at the Action Re-play indoor play area in Bowburn just outside Durham.

Loads of his school friends came, including the two girls who every so often seem to be vying for his affections/are the subjects of his (Nathalie and Victoria), plus his other best friend Xavier, and from his school - deep breath - Adam, Alex, Andrew, Ben, Ben, Benedict, Jasmine, Matthew, Matthew & Charlie, Molly, Oliver, Oliver and Zofia; Ben, James and Lily from down the road and, from Thursday 'gymnastics' [well, rolling around and jumping up and down for an hour!] Sam and Freya.

Liam and the kids had a great time on the big slide and in the pit of plastic balls, etc, then somehow were corralled into the Jungle Room for some food, and Liam's cake, which was a special Lightning McQueen look-a-like, complete with modified tail bumper brearing his name, courtesy of some heroic work with the icing sugar pen from his Mummy.

This is a great picture of Liam blowing out his candles (on stalks spelling out "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" in case you were wondering why there were so many!). It's also the only picture we have (we need to get ourselves a digital camera).