I rest on my laurels

My partying days are over.

Thank God.

At least until October when Oscar turns three, and is still implacable about the fact that he wants a drum.

I am not thinking about this until September.

In the meantime I have been hostess with the leastest today.

I have just sat down after an hour of fettling the kitchen, ploughing the floor and thinking dementedly that if we had chickens I could have released them to peck up all the crumbs and save myself the effort of sweeping the floor, AGAIN.

It was a successful party.  My friend B and her husband Dally bought round home made samosas and freshly cooked spicy chicken wings, which were absolutely gorgeous, and there was so much party food it spilled off the table and onto the kitchen counters.  That is a good party.  I think I might bastardize the John Lewis motto ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ for my party motto: ‘Never knowingly under catered.’

Tallulah, it has to be said for the record, was impeccably behaved. Gracious, pleasant and nice to all her guests.  She had a slight altercation with one small child, but it was difficult to say who started it, and both were nice to each other when confronted with stern mother’s and grandmother’s.  The only disaster was Oscar spraining his ankle being trampled on the trampoline.  A hazard of the occupation I think.  He is much better now and will be sprinting about like a loon by breakfast.  Oh, and Tilly and her friend had a water drinking competition and Tilly was sick after trying to down a pint of water in less than a minute, against strenuous advice from adults.  It was what you might call a learning experience.  Better water than brown ale I feel.

Granny did face painting with great success.  It also helped that we allowed multiple versions of ‘faces’ when children got bored, and that the older ones got to decorate themselves and each other. It was a little sticky, but very fun.  Oscar was a brown cat, and when he got trampled, my bosom also became a brown cat.  But it washes off.

I had a nice time and ate far too much cake, far too many samosas and managed to quaff two glasses of Veuve Cliquot which I had also remembered to chill.  That was good.

I have been taking notes on what seems to make a good party for kids.  Here are my theories:

• You need a far larger ratio of adults to children.  This is for two reasons.  It makes the adults less insane because they have the company of their peers and have to spend less time talking to people who only come up to their knee.  It also means that the children fight less because they are being overseen more carefully, and because they get more attention.  By adults I mean inviting people you as the adult running the party actually want to spend time with.  Not just the parents of small children who you don’t know and have to spend lots of time being polite too.  That is too stressful.  My children are allowed to invite only two guest of their own choosing to their party.  Everyone else is vetted and invited at my discretion.  It might sound awful, but it works.  Two children as friends is more than enough, and kids of family and friends also come, so they are not alone.
• You must always provide at least a third more food than is necessary.  It is very hard for people to get tetchy when there is a never ending supply of goodies to tempt them with, and the possibility that they may be able to take home some illicit foodie contraband.
• As far as drinks go, I bend my rules and allow the evil Fruit Shoots for the kids.  This is because a) I have never met a kid who didn’t like them yet, b) they are dirt cheap and come in multipacks which are invariably on sale and c) because they come in squeezy bottles I don’t have to spend my time endlessly making drinks and worrying about spillages.  The empties go in the recycling box.  As far as drinks go for grown ups, I always throw parties in the day.  There is usually a bottle of wine around if someone wants some. Most people I know don’t.  I have the kettle on a continual rolling boil and we brew up more times than a builder’s convention.
• Never provide goody bags.  No child at a party I have thrown has ever complained about the lack of goodie bags. I always provide cake and sweeties to go home with.  They are all perfectly happy.  We do not even do balloons.
• We do not organise games.  We sometimes have activities if the weather is bad or if the children start to fight, but in the main they like to be allowed to surge about and do their own thing.  When we do ‘games’ or activities, the adults join in and the kids get to have more responsibility than normal, as with the face paints.  They love it.  In the past we have had water fights, boules competitions, impromptu treasure hunts and chasing children round and round in circles until they are sick.  We had paddling pool nirvana one year. That was good.
• The other thing which I have observed is that although I always over provide cakes and sweets, I make sure that there are always large bowls of fresh fruit, strawberries, raspberries, pineapple etc, and cream.  These are, without fail, the bowls that always empty first, and which the children are most sad about when they are gone.  I bought twice as many strawberries and raspberries for Tallulah’s party and they still disappeared within about twenty minutes.
• At my parties everyone is allowed to eat everything in whatever order they like.  If they want doughnuts with horseradish sauce and chicken wings, so be it.  It adds a certain frisson of danger to the table and some interesting taste combinations are created.

So. Those are the tips that work for me.  Just for me mind you.  I’ve never catered for anyone else, so if you do it my way and your party ends in screaming disaster, please don’t come and kill me.  I is only saying.