Yesterday was my birthday! I had done a countdown towards it since twenty-one days before it started. I was so excited. I have been planning my birthday for a while and I even made a list each for the birthday spread and the games and the films.
I got some really amazing presents. One of them was a bunny rabbit toy from a gift shop, which I named Stanley Bunny, who is really fluffy. He has super long ears that flop downwards instead of up, quite long arms and little tiny legs – even now I don’t see how the makers got him to look so cute yet so out of proportion 😉 Tilly got me him with her own money and I adore him!
I also got a leatherbound notebook, which I have wanted for years. From my nanny and grandad I got a little story about a girl my age now (10) who went to boarding school and also a diary planner book for next year. I got a snow globe too that you can put pictures inside, so Andy put a photo of Greg Wallace in it – he does things like that all the time. I also got a woodland colouring book and sketching pencils and a book of crosswords. I got a tin of chocolate flavoured mints and a bottle of posh ginger beer. Thank you so much, everybody who got me them!
We had a really big party. We were going to go out but, because it’s the middle of December, it was cold and pretty rainy. Andy took the day off work to have a family indoor party, however, and I think it was more fun than if we went outside. I had so much fun!
During the party we watched two films. One of them was one we’d seen before in the cinema. It was called ‘Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day’. The other was a true story about a dog. It was simply called ‘Hatchiko: A Dog’s Tale’. It was about a dog who had been found at the train station by a professor who raised him. Every day he would sit down outside his master’s work on a little brick ledge at 5:00, and then he would walk home with him. But one day, when his master died at work from a heart attack, he couldn’t be told. He roamed round as a stray dog, and every day for ten years, before he died, he would go and wait for his master to come back from his work at 5:00.
One of the games we played was when I got Andy to buy a tiny block of ginger, and then we saw who could eat the most! I won because I love ginger loads. The first round was just a really tiny little piece that we chewed and attempted to swallow. Everybody swallowed that piece apart from Mummy, whose face turned red and then she had to put it down! I got through to the second round (nobody else did), but when I wasn’t looking the pieces were put in the bin.
One of the other games we played was where we built a mini church using real cement, mortar and bricks. It was really fun but the cement, Mummy thought, was too dry, and it crumbled ever so slightly. We didn’t finish it, but later on when we touched the layer on the top three of the mini bricks, stuck together, fell off the layer under and balanced precariously on the gravelly base. We are just hoping it won’t collapse when we next continue it!
For lunch we had soup in little bowls that read ‘Soup’, as you could probably guess. But for dinner we had something completely different – our traditional birthday spread. There was celery, dips, guacamole, salsa, cucumber, rolls, cheese, crisps, and loads more. And for pudding there was my selected finest birthday cake – a red velvet and chocolate cake, that looked so tasty I couldn’t wait! The candles were all lit and pretty and, for once in all my birthdays, I blew them out in one go!
To finish off the day, we had a long disco. Tilly didn’t really want to dance but Mummy and I got up and went for it! We both held hands in a circle with Stanley Bunny, Kendall Bear and Ellie Bear, my two other cuddly toys, and did dances with them. We listened to all kinds of music and I was exhausted by the end of it, though still reluctant to go upstairs to bed!
The day was really great and I loved every bit of it. Now I’m double digits and a year older! And now I just cannot wait until next year – but hold it! We have Christmas next! 😀
