Percy's big party

I've been in France all week trying to decide where to live, but before I write that blog here's one that I started just before we left:

This weekend was the first time we hosted a proper big birthday party. This year Percy requested a hall party. So far we've only ever hosted parties in our house or he's taken a couple of friends out, once to Gulliver's world (a kids theme park) and once to Mattel play (a really good sort of soft play place). We've been to a lot of hall parties for people from his class, some with a bouncy castle and some with an entertainer who would do games or be in character as a super hero. 

trying to stop kids going on the bouncy castle before it was fully inflated.

I actually can't believe the effort people put into parties these days. I don't know if things have changed party wise since the early 90's, or maybe my experience was different to other people my age, but I can only remember one whole class party from my childhood and that was in a big soft play. 

Almost all of my parties were in the house, apart from one swimming party I had joint with my sister. I had a few friends round and we played games like; the chocolate game, where you have to take turns going round the circle rolling a dice. When someone gets a 6 they have to put on gloves and a hat and eat a bar of chocolate with a knife and fork. They eat as much as they can before the next person rolls a 6. It's such a great game! Occasionally I meet people now that haven't heard of this game and I just can't believe it, what were you doing in the 90's if it wasn't that? I was thinking about doing this game at Percy's party but it isn't very covid safe to all be dribbling on the same bar of chocolate. Also, given how aggressive pass the parcel got I think this was a good choice.

I felt very grateful to be able to use our church hall. It's 5 minutes walk from our house and a good size, they actually don't normally rent it out at the moment, but because they know us, and we were willing to just have the keys and do all the setting up and cleaning up afterwards, they let us have it. We paid to hire a bouncy castle and then everything else we got for free or made ourselves. Percy chose a space theme which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately we couldn't get a space themed bouncy castle, but Percy choose PJ masks because, "they come out at night" and space is like a huge night time world, right? I hope everyone at the party got that tenuous link. 

My sister Sarah did face painting which she's very good at and everyone loved. I'm surprisingly bad at face painting considering I'm an artist. A 4 year olds face is really the most annoying canvas. I never consider it as a surface, although maybe I should. Sometimes I do the food shop with Eric in the trolley seat facing me, if I wrote my shopping list on his face maybe he'd feel like I was engaging with him more.

I loved that a boy requested that Sarah paint a black hole on his face and I love even more that when Sarah made a facebook status about this she accidentally missed out the word hole. She said "today I went to a 7th birthday party which involved painting a child's face to look like a black." I think facebook should have permanently banned her for that.

I did the "entertainment". I used my sound system and mic that I own from comedy and I led a few party games. It was a lot of pressure being the person who decided who was out in the games, I was relieved when I thought to delegate that job to another kid so that I didn't have to feel the guilt. There was a lot of tense tactical playing going on in pass the parcel. It's crazy how competitive kids will get for a sweet when theres a table of sugary treats right in front of them.

We had glow in the dark temporary tattoos, which I really loved the designs of. I wonder if I should get a real tattoo. The problem is though I could only get one on the upper half of my body because I had my pelvic lymph nodes removed when I had cancer, which means I have to be careful not to get any cuts on my legs because the magical bits that go and heal cuts don't work properly. So I'm only allowed to permanently scar my upper body.

I made a lot of stuff for the party including this photo thing. I don't know what you would call it, but comedian James Acaster calls it the opposite of a mask. 

If you want this thing please get in touch, I can re paint it with a different name and number.

I also made this fun alternative to a government slogan as a sign for the face painting. 

I made some alien biscuits and alien space crafts from a Tunnock's tea cake and a meringue and a grape, not as one child asked me, an olive. That would be a pretty disgusting snack. Because I made all of this stuff I delegated making the cake to Dan. Percy wanted a cake of the solar system, just a nice easy 9 planets plus the sun and moon. It took so long to make and I am a bad delegator. I like to delegate but I also like things done the way I would do it. Dan has really no cake decorating experience, so watching him was like watching a 4 year old. It was a tense time but we managed to make it through without getting divorced. Hooray for us. 

Fun game: If you had to date one of these guys which would you pick?

Dan's solar system cake, this photo doesn't really do it justice. it was pretty impressive and the inside of the a lot of the cakes were coloured too.

We really have upped the bar for parties though, on the way back from this party Eric was describing his dream party. He's pretty new to parties because he was 2 when we went into lockdown and cant remember the before times. on his 3rd birthday (which was his second lockdown birthday) we asked him what he wanted to do for it and he just said "play with toys" because he actually didn't know what a party is. Now he's asking for a mario themed party! Hopefully by his birthday (May) we'll be in sunny France. More about that soon.

If you came to Percy's party thank you. He had the best day ever.