It was Max's 14th Birthday this weekend, Oh what a great time we all had... Max had two of his friends from school to sleep over on the Friday night.
I did my best Party tea, sausages on sticks, sandwiches, pizza etc. plus of course a chocolate cake with candles. I should have known things weren't going to be easy after one them (no names) spilled boiling hot chocolate over himself, and I had to spray him down with burn relief aerosol and get his clothes in the wash. I had pictures of returning a permanently scarred child to his parents. Off they went to the basement (not a cellar or anything, but a proper living area, just in case you thought us really cruel). We ignored the noise of boys larking about and managed to get to sleep at some unearthly hour (far to late for oldies) only to be woken at 2am by screams. It seemed that one of them had gone to the bathroom and when he came back the other two thought he was a burglar. Huh!
Morning came and Alistair fed them a good fry up, and we took them off to Lobo Park, which is a Wolf Park about an hour's drive away. We arrived with a few moans about being hungry (already). Then we found that the note in my wallet that I thought was a fifty Euro, was a ten, aargh. After much probing in pockets and handbag we just managed to pay the entrance fee, but nothing over for anything else except a hot chocolate each (you would have thought they would have been too emotionally scarred to go there again).
Wolves were good, and we learnt a lot (for example the obvious origin of he phrase "wolf it down"), but it was quite cold. With all that howling about being hungry I'm not sure who should have been caged up - boys or wolves! So after an hour walking around the compound it was nice to get back in the car and off we set to find an ATM, which took a bit of doing, with the boys grumbling about how starving they were. That accomplished, we took them for lunch at a nice Italian Resaurant, and then dropped them off at their respective homes. Quite a drive home, I took over as Alistair was starting to flag. We arrived home in the dark, and the first thing we did was open a bottle of wine (our 'No Drinking' month well and truly dashed).
The next morning (Sunday) Max did an initial tidy up downstairs before I timidly ventured down there. Things didn't seem to bad till I found the "Squirty Cream" can and noticed flecks of white around the room. Oh No!! And Max thinking he was helping had very kindly put the decorative VELVET BURGUNDY cushion covers in the washing machine with the white sheets. Oh Joy!!
Alistair heard a tiny voice calling up from the basement "Pour me a large Gin & Tonic please". He gladly obliged.