Party on the ark

January is a difficult time to have a birthday. Everyone is a bit over presents and celebrations. The long school holidays are still in full swing and people are away. Not a great time for a birthday party and so we waited until school went back. Then I did some procrastinating and finally, on Saturday, Toby had his birthday party at Noah's Ark.


How peaceful the room looks, waiting for hordes of little boys and a few little girls.

Bethany, who has no fear in many situations, is quite timid when it comes to the big slide. She will only go down with Daddy and even then.... well, look at her face!

The kids took frequent breaks from flying around all the play equipment to eat and they stopped for a full ten minutes to have the cake.

Kids just love Noah's Ark for parties and I love it too - after two hours of chaos I walked away, leaving the mess and went to my clean and quiet home.

The cake was Nigella's chocolate honey cake. It, obviously, isn't really meant to be in the shape of a seven and there is a reason why children's birthday cakes are made with a very boring butter cake - it is easy to shape and work with. This cake wasn't that, but it was delicious. I renamed it the drowning bee cake - what a way to go, chocolate and honey. Many of the children even ate the marzipan bees! I thought I'd have to eat them all.

After the children fell exhausted into bed, Andrew went to a men's dinner with church and Mim came over bringing red tulips and moscato. We ate okonomiyaki and chocolate honey cake and watched The Pianist - not a fun movie of course, but very good. Did you watch Lost in Austen last night? So funny! I can't wait for next week.