It was party time at the weekend. It was supposed to be anyway. Bonnie celebrated her fifth birthday on Monday, which meant some kind of event on Saturday.
She had been planning it for about a year, drawing up and re-drawing up the guest list according to the vagaries of the primary school Reception Year social scene.
Different ideas for the party came and went, mainly revolving around the themes of princesses and fairies.
I would like to say the excitement was building, but it wasn’t. It came ready made and complete right from day one.
However, the trouble with being the fourth child is that your parents have used up a lot of their enthusiasm for birthday parties long ago.
In Bonnie’s case we used it up after the first party for her eldest brother, 10 years previously.
I’m not saying Bonnie is never going to get a proper party, but this year our courage failed us and we offered her a sleepover instead.
protested
Having friends staying overnight is not an insignificant thing, but would she go for it?
Her next brother up, Billy, who is nine, protested that he had never had a sleepover and that sealed the deal... Bonnie was delighted to have one.
My One True Love and I thought we had won a minor victory.
The final agreement was for two friends to accompany her to the cinema (along with the full ceremonial escort of her three brothers), a birthday tea of her choice (some kind of princess cake stipulated) and then the sleepover.
Compared to three hours of sugar riot at the average boys’ party, it seemed to outscore the male version for interesting activities in the same way the average hen weekend is so much more than a drunken tour of Romanian lapdancing clubs.
I began to think that it might even be quite a civilised afternoon and evening. It was just two extra four-year-old girls, after all.
Bonnie has already shown me that I have no power over four-year-old girls, but with My One True Love and Bonnie’s three brothers we at least outnumbered them. Even if we took a casualty.
How naive I was.
marching
It turns out that three four-year-old girls together are more than the sum of their parts when they go marching through the world hand in hand.
They aren’t trouble exactly. With boys it’s straightforward: once you have the riot contained and the pecking order established, you can move forward.
With girls it turns out that the only importance they attach to a pecking order is knowing who to tell off when things aren’t just how they like them.
They aren’t trouble, they are in charge.
But what can I expect, I suppose, when I’m throwing a party for three princesses...
The idea currently being floated that the Police and Fire Service could merge in Northamptonshire is about as potty as it gets.
Admittedly it has been described as something that would be ‘many years down the line’ by the new Police Commissioner, Adam Simmonds.
But he has also expressed his openness to the idea and this has caused alarm in many quarters, including Northampton South MP, Brian Binley, who is concerned fellow Conservative Simmonds ‘is trying to take over the world’.
Mr Simmonds has a vision in which one day we might have a single Northamptonshire Emergency Service, if he can get his hands on the ambulances too.
The logic of doing this seems to be that the first person to the scene of an incident would somehow become a super-responder who could deal with anything.
At this point I would like to direct Mr Simmonds to popular culture. Does Superman shoot spider webs from his wrists? No. Can Spiderman fly? No. Not even superheroes can do everything because it pushes the boundaries of credibility too far.
It seems, however, that Mr Simmonds has latched onto an idea that is too far fetched even for the writers of comic books; one super service that solves everything.
When they start delivering pizzas too, I might take it seriously...
 |  |