A birthday day

First up for the three birthday girls, the birthday cards. One arrives from Aunty Dee with a note of apology, having been shredded by Royal Mail. The pieces have been thoughtfully put in a plastic bag.

This is better than one of the birthday presents, a red dressing-up dress I bought three weeks ago from ebay, which hasn't arrived at all. There's been no reply from the seller to my emails, so I've been badmouthing her and kicking the furniture. Next I'll find she's lying in a hospital bed with her appendix in a jar and my cheque still on her doormat.

Cake, we did two yesterday, and we're all feeling a bit over-caked. So we're cutting out the cake today. Balloons I had yesterday and didn't blow up, so will consider saving them until we can have another go at some sort of party next week.

The rest of the events, like presents, are down to us: new bedrooms, a playroom, and a line of dressing-up dresses in all colours, except in red. Today is moving day.

The moving of furniture and the clearing of detritus goes on all day. The chandelier goes up, with a lot of cursing, and the ladders come down. The light-stop curtains go up, and the new dressing up box is installed. The mattresses go up, and the old beds start to be dismantled.

Dig's not sure about taking the old beds apart. First he says he doesn't want to do it. He says it's because of the emotional trauma. When we got them about three years ago Dig had to threaten legal action to prise them out of the company who made them. It took six months. At one point the kids were sleeping on the floor. When the beds finally arrived, the construction took ages. Then we realised that while they looked great in the shop, with three of them lined up in the bedrooms, they looked a bit like a hospital ward. So to spare Dig's sensitivities I took the first bed down quietly, with care, time, and an alan key. Ten minutes later I find him smashing the second one apart with his foot and a rubber mallet.

By 8 in the evening, everyone's starving. And in the rush of the past few days, I've forgotten about food. There's a bent carrot in the fridge and three green potatoes in the cylindrical container I call a potato hopper and which Ikea call a plastic bag store. This doesn't look good. We had the pasta option for lunch. I suggest I make tomato bread and then discover we haven't got any tomato and we haven't got any bread either.

Dig comes up with a plan. Go to the Pizza Shop in the market square. This is excellent. Last week we hit the chippy, then it was an Indian take-away and the other night a Chinese meal for Chinese New Year. The Pizza Shop will spare our blushes. We've only ever tried it once; when we all got there, starving, it was shut for staff training. But tonight they're open, and can do tomato and pineapple for the birthday girls.

After supper we're probably wrong to let the princesses into the new playroom to find all their dressing-up dresses lined up for them. It's far too late, and they still have the excitement of their new bedrooms. But there are squeals of delight on finding perfect presents. So it's bed at 11pm. And a momentus day over.