Birthday party

The birthday party is done. It is an achievement. I am proud. Last year Shark, Squirrel and Tiger endured nearly ten months before I finally organised the birthday party. Birthday in February. Party in November. They must have wore me down with the whining and pleading.

But where did we go this time? To Planet Ice. A skating rink.

This required no small amount of self sacrifice, so I shall tell you about it. Because for an aged hippie like Grit who would run fa-la-la-ing naked through warm dappled woods, twisting flowers in her hair if only she would not be trapped by the police and sent to a secure unit, Planet Ice is the antithesis of being. It is the underpass of all misery.

Planet Ice is located deep underground and is painted black. I am convinced this is designed to lure the teenage market to a physical manifestation of their angst, pain and despair, because the further you sink down into this clammy damp circle of hell, the colder and deeper and more destroyed your soul. The only thing Planet Ice have got wrong about this set up is that at the bottom of the pit you have to go ice skating instead of up Satan's bottom and the music they play is Madonna and not The Cure.

I wish I could find a bit of pleasure about this place as a party venue, even for the sake of the children. But I cannot. As the doors swing back I expect to take cover from drugged out teenagers hanging against walls and vomiting in passageways. Once I have fallen over on the slope downhill, the wafting stench of frying cheap burger slithers up to soil my vegan soul. I am sure these burgers have never seen any form of meat at all. They may be made of mechanically recovered meat so that includes the eyeballs. The coffee is not coffee. It is a brown secretion possibly containing lard.

Then there is the ice skating. Rightly, the rink should be a pile of broken corpses with detached limbs and dismembered bodies, continuously sliced apart by a battle hardened wild eyed band of skaters travelling at speeds over 50mph. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING will induce me to strap metal razor blades to my feet and join the party. I would have to be mad, decomposed or bribed with several million quid and a free chateaux for life with staff.

The vehicle used half way through party time Saturday
to sweep the ice of dead bodies

But the children of course, these inexperienced creations who have yet to live through the dark ages, love Planet Ice. They think this is possibly the best, finest, most wonderful place to party, possibly in all eternity. The Hat, who probably does not live on planet earth, also joins the event, albeit two hours late when there is only fifteen minutes of skate time remaining. I provide cake. People provide presents. The gritlets provide grumpy shoving and pushing (and I note, Tiger, some chasing of the boys) and a good time is had by all.

And truly, I am always amazed that people offer gifts.
Really, I am humbled. The gritlets, on the other hand,
think this sort of thing at birthday parties is normal.

Well, a good time was not had by Grit, although forming a support group with the other suffering party mothers helped ameliorate the situation considerably. But as I said, I have suffered, achieved, and it is done. I have survived the birthday party. And I have survived Planet Ice.

Until Saturday, when Tiger takes her ice skating lesson.